Fast as You Can
by fabala-fae
Summary: County is torn apart when one doctor is dead, five more are missing, and there's still a killer on the loose...finally updated!
1. Fast as You Can (1/7)

AUTHOR: Jen  
  
EMAIL: dreamaway18@hotmail.com  
  
CATEGORY: Cast  
  
RATING: PG-13 (language)  
  
SPOILERS: None  
  
DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of these characters (I wish I did!), NBC does. Lucky dogs.  
  
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This series was my first attempt at fanfiction, so please tell me how I'm doing!  
  
Time period: End of 6th season, minus the stabbing. And oh yeah, Doug and Carol are still there, and are married (which, in my opinion, should have happened anyway!!!).  
  
Warning: The following story may have violent scenes and vulgar language - sorry! Also, this is my very first fanfiction ever, I got hooked on reading them and thought it might be more fun to write them. This will be the first (of many) in this series. Good or bad thing? You tell me.  
  
Comments and Criticisms: PLEASE!! I could use the help! Dreamaway18@hotmail.com Be honest, however harsh that may be! Also, I took an anatomy class so I'm relatively familiar with the scientific terms for the body (I only got a B in the class) but I don't know the exact medical procedures or the medical jargon from the show - I'm gonna try my best though!  
  
Song: "January Friend" by the Goo Goo Dolls - by the way, every song in the "Fast as you Can" series will be by my favorite band, the Goo Goo Dolls!  
  
SUMMARY: The murder of a doctor in the ER stirs feelings of grief, sorrow, and fear, as 5 more doctors have gone missing...  
  
  
  
---------------------------------------  
  
Reach  
  
For higher ground  
  
About the way you look  
  
The way you scream out loud  
  
Mine  
  
Just like the last time  
  
Its all the same to me  
  
----------------------------------  
  
The room was deathly quiet, the faint stench of formaldehyde lingering in the air. It was dark and the air was damp and cold, giving the frighteningly claustrophobic feeling of a tomb. A lone woman sat by a gurney, turned towards the lifeless figure lying in the cold, metal bed. She sat hunched over in her seat, making a hushed noise that was too sorrowful to be humming, yet too sweet to be weeping. Her arms were folded along the metal bars around the bed, her hands meeting gently on the cold arm that lay beside the equally cold body. She had seen so many deaths before this one, most of which had been excruciating and painful for both patient and doctor. Of course, she wasn't a doctor - yet. The quiet deaths - the ones that seemed to just slip away, even after it seemed they would survive - were much worse for her to witness. It was as if she could feel the patient's life leaving the body, as the eyes took their last blink and the lungs took their last breath. She shuddered at the memory of the scene she had witnessed only an hour ago. No matter how strong she appeared to be in the emergency room during a crisis, these quiet deaths affected her deeply. Her shift had ended shortly after the death, but she couldn't bring herself to leave. The body under the sheet was so small and still; a phenomenon too unusual for the natural world. It disturbed her to the core to see a five year old child lay so still. Cancer didn't care about the young age of its victims - only their vulnerability.  
  
The slight squeak of an opening door caused her to gasp suddenly, straighten up, and whip her head around to face the door, as if she had been caught doing something she shouldn't have. The person at the door was masked by darkness, but his figure was so familiar to her that her suddenly tensed muscles eased quickly. The warmth he seemed to emit by merely existing thawed the chill that had seeped into her bones. He leaned against the doorway and folded his arms characteristically. "Hey," he said in his ruggedly handsome voice.  
  
Comfortable again, she slumped into her previous position, but still faced the door. "Hey," she repeated. "What are you doing down here?" She hid a smile that would reveal how happy she was to see him. She loved the fact that he couldn't stand for her to be out of his sight for too long, even though she pretended to be annoyed.  
  
"I should ask you the same thing," he said, the same hidden smile crossing his face as he spoke, but revealing itself in his eyes. He tried not to shudder as he inhaled the cold, damp air and felt it on his shoulders. He hated being down here.  
  
He tore his eyes from the woman and looked past her to the body in the gurney. The hidden smile disappeared from his eyes, replaced by a look of concern. "The little girl.?" he trailed off, not needing to elaborate.  
  
Carol Hathaway dropped her eyes mournfully back to the gurney. "Yes," she said quietly. The air between them stood still once again.  
  
Doug Ross dropped his eyes, not knowing what to say. Carol had tended to this patient for a full week, staying hours past her shift, just to watch the girl's heart rate get back to normal. Doug had walked in on them numerous times, seeing Carol's arms draped over the bars of the girl's bed, like they were now. As far as he knew, the girl had regained consciousness only once, for a few days, before the tumor in her brain had put her to sleep again only an hour ago. During that brief time Carol had been positive that the tiny child had been saved from the dangerous lump in her head. But to see the look of absolute heartbreak across her beautiful face devastated Doug. "I'm sorry," he said softly.  
  
Carol appeared not to hear him; she seemed lost in her own thoughts. She put her chin on top of her arms; eyes focused on the small figure in the gurney. "Me too," she mumbled, her words muffled by her sleeve.  
  
Doug walked over to her and brushed her curly black hair from the back of her neck. He placed his hand on the exposed skin, stroking the nape of her neck ever so slightly with his thumb. Her hand reached to his forearm and it remained there, her silent gratitude of his support. Suddenly, the beep beep of a pager slashed the moment, breaking Carol's trance as she reached to her waist and removed the small plastic annoyance. "ER," she said quietly but abruptly. "Both of us."  
  
"Both of us?" Doug asked. "How did they know I was with you?"  
  
"Wild guess, probably," she joked, the tiny smile that always lurked around the corners of her mouth returning. She stood up, then closed her eyes agonizingly as one of her hands left the bar of the gurney and the other from Doug's forearm. Doug moved his hands to her shoulders, a signal of his strong support.  
  
"Are you even on anymore?" Doug asked.  
  
"No, my shift ended about an hour ago." She opened her eyes and looked into his. "I just couldn't leave yet. What about you?" She checked her watch. "Your shift ended ages ago."  
  
"I was looking for you," he said, his eyes twinkling.  
  
Beep beep, beep beep whined the pager again, interrupting yet another moment. Carol checked it again, even though she knew what it would say. "We gotta go," she said, her professional strength returning.  
  
"Why don't they ever page me anymore?" Doug asked, annoyed.  
  
"They know you too well. They know you never turn on your pager," said Carol not so seriously. Smiling, Doug turned away from her, reached to his waist, and turned on his pager. I'm getting too predictable in my old age, he thought. He followed Carol to the door, where she looked back only once, but was unable to tear her eyes away. Beep beep beep beep rang the two pagers, off beat from each other. They both checked their pagers in the same motion, then looked at each other in bewilderment. Together they left the morgue, the moment broken forever. Duty called.  
  
--------------------------------  
  
She said  
  
Let's pretend  
  
My January friend  
  
I'm wantin' you again  
  
I wanna touch you  
  
Every single heart that beats pretend  
  
-------------------------------  
  
"Whaddawegot?" a tall black man shouted, the words slurred together as a result of saying them so often. He burst through the wooden doors forcefully (a spectacular motion for any stranger to see but perfectly ordinary to all of the ER staff) and leaned over the patient. No one answered his question. "Oh my God," he uttered softly, the blood drained from his face- completely unlike the composed and professional Peter Benton that everyone was accustomed to - as he recognized the patient.  
  
------------------------------  
  
My January friend  
  
I'm wantin you again  
  
I wanna touch you  
  
Every single heart that beats  
  
-----------------------------  
  
.Three hundred fifty one, three hundred fifty two, three hundred fifty - what number was he on? Arrrg, he had to start over now. Frustrated, the tired doctor rubbed his eyes. All he could see from his angle were green curtains, a fluorescent light that buzzed with electricity, and three hundred and fifty-something ceiling tiles. He gritted his teeth in utter exasperation and rubbed his eyes furiously. He had been so tired during his double shift that he thought he would be asleep before his head hit the pillow. Of course, that was before he had drunk an entire pot of coffee - much to the dismay of his co-workers - and taken several caffeine pills. Ordinarily he wouldn't be so stupidly taking such risks to his health, but a 16-car pile-up had just come in and he could not fall asleep in the middle of it. He had needed a quick jolt, and a quick jolt he had received. But as he lay in the exam room, his arm stretched across his forehead and his eyes worn with exhaustion, he seriously regretted taking the easy way to get energy. His brain was so tired that it felt numb. His body simply would not let him rest.  
  
Maybe it's the light that's keeping me awake, he thought wearily, even though he knew it wasn't. Why is the light even on when I'm trying to sleep? He searched back into his mind to find out why on earth he would have turned the light on. Ah yes, he had turned it on so he could count the ceiling tiles. I am the amazing wizard of intelligence, he thought, and then chuckled at the ridiculousness of the statement. Man, he was tired.  
  
Since counting the ceiling tiles hadn't put him to sleep, and since he had.only ten minutes until his next shift, the doctor decided that trying to sleep was futile. He could pawn off some patients on Lucy, if he had to. As soon as the caffeine wore off, he would sneak into an exam room and catch a 20 minute nap. The day had been uneventful - besides the 16-car pile up - and would likely remain so. Of course, there was no point in wasting the precious time he had before his shift started, especially since he hadn't heard any sirens for a long time. Leaning over, he turned the light off and continued to fight for sleep. He felt himself drifting off surprisingly quickly, and an intense feeling of relaxation swept over him very suddenly. It must have been the lights.was his last thought before he finally fell asleep.  
  
An abrupt slam as the door opened awakened the sleeping doctor with a jolt. "Carter! Needed in the ER!" a familiarly unpleasant voice yelled.  
  
"Not.Carter." the doctor murmured through his sleepiness. It was too late; Haleh had already stomped away. Grateful for the few seconds that would pass before Haleh would realize her mistake, the doctor sank back into the pillow and closed his eyes. Beep beep sang his pager, bringing him back to reality once again. "Just 5 more minutes." he tried to coax his pager sleepily.  
  
As if that weren't enough of a wake-up call, Haleh marched in once again. "Malucci!" she bellowed. "Your shift's on!" This time she waited for him to get up; she was not about to come back here again.  
  
"Not.Malucci." the doctor stammered through his unconsciousness. His pager was still going nuts.  
  
"Like hell you're not! Get up -" she tore the curtains open "-and get to work! ER needs you!" She pulled him out of bed by the arms and didn't let go until he was out the door. "Wake up!" she shouted as she bustled away.  
  
Dave Malucci groaned and rubbed his eyes. "Never again," he grumbled.  
  
Lydia stepped over his sprawled body that was still in the reception center. "Never again what? Never again drinking all the coffee in the lounge? Never again sleeping past your shift? Never again catching naps during your shift and not being able to sleep between shifts?" she asked, her hands on her hips.  
  
Malucci rubbed his wrists where Haleh had dragged him out of bed. "No, never again will I sleep where Haleh can find me." He reached over to his pager. "And never again will I wear my pager when I'm sleeping." It was still ringing, and Malucci discovered that he had slept through 15 pages. Not only that, but after looking at his watch, he realized that he had slept 20 minutes into his shift. "Oh no," he moaned, as he scrambled to his feet and to the ER. It wasn't until he was on his feet that he realized the enormity of the news that his pager had given. "Oh shit," he said numbly. Paralyzed with shock, he stood staring at his pager, willing it to be wrong. He watched as crowds gathered around the doors of Trauma 1 and nurses streaming in and out through the doors. A 16th page snapped him out of his trance and sent him to the ER  
  
------------------------------------  
  
Cry  
  
Don't cry out loud  
  
You've gotta bear your cross  
  
But never dream too loud  
  
And you're tied  
  
Tied to the next time  
  
You realize your crimes  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
"I need suction over here!" Benton yelled. A nurse dutifully complied. Benton had been shrieking his orders more belligerently than usual. He was running all over the room, doing everything himself, occasionally calling out for a nurse's assistance. It wasn't his ordinarily domineering attitude that caused him to work alone; all the other doctors seemed to be sitting on their pagers. "Where the HELL is everyone?!" Benton hollered.  
  
The doors burst open upon his question, as if answering it. "What's up, Peter?" the low, gruff voice asked. The man slipped on a yellow cover-up and put on some gloves. "And what's up with the 10 pages on my way up here?" His eyes twinkled mischievously. "Just couldn't wait to see me, huh?"  
  
"Shut up, Doug, and help me out!" shouted Benton, still running around the room frantically. Finding the instrument he needed, he ran up to the patient and focused intently with his surgeon's eye. "GSW to the left lung, right shoulder, and dorsal thorax, BP's 90, pulse is 55," he yelled. "If you had come when I first paged you, I wouldn't have had to page you 10 more times. Where the hell were you?!"  
  
"I'm not even on right now, Peter," said Doug crossly. "You're just lucky I was a decent enough guy to help you out -"  
  
"Then shut up and help me out!" Benton yelled. Doug let the interruption go.if it had been anyone else but Peter Benton interrupting his "I'm such a generous person, be grateful for my very existence" speech, he would have gotten seriously mad. Defeated (something he hated to be), he grumbled and walked over to the patient. His brow wrinkled, he surveyed the situation. Gunshot wounds to the shoulder and to the chest - probably a punctured lung. Doug's hands moved rapidly as he set to work. Still cross, he didn't seem to recognize the patient. No one bothered to tell him the patient's identity; whenever something like this happened, it was best to let the doctors see for themselves. This unspoken rule was in play as the nurses stood around the gurney, silently waiting. Doug certainly was dense. He had been in the room for a full minute but still hadn't recognized the patient on which he was working.  
  
"And where the hell is Carol?" asked Benton, a little calmer now that he had some help, but still more frantic than usual. "I paged her too!"  
  
"Carol went home," Doug said irritably, not taking his eyes off the tube he was inserting. "Her shift ended a long time ago -" he narrowed his eyes at Benton - "like mine did."  
  
"Dammit! We need Carol now! Chuny, go find Carol and tell her we need her!" Benton yelled. Tearfully, Chuny complied. It really affected her when something like this happened. Gunshot wounds. How could this have happened?  
  
"Peter, no!" Doug said assertively. "Carol's going home. She's had a really rough day and she needs to go home. She's not even on right now." Completing the tube he had been inserting, Doug looked up. "Just who the hell is on right now besides you, anyway?"  
  
Benton glared at him with his fierce, tiger-like eyes. He looked down at the patient, answering Doug's question silently.  
  
A wave of shock passed over Doug as he looked down and finally recognized the body in the gurney. "Oh." he said, understanding. That's right, he thought. I forgot she had taken my shift. Shaking off the sense of fear that always hit when something like this happened, he started working furiously. Now he was fighting for more than a stranger's life - he was fighting to save a friend.  
  
------------------------------------  
  
Let's pretend  
  
My January friend  
  
I'm wantin' you again  
  
I wanna touch you  
  
Every single heart that beats pretend  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
"And right in here is the OR, where.there don't seem to be any operations going on right now. All right then!" The doctor feigned a smile, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to be cheery when he felt more and more discouraged every second. He hated Kerry for sticking him with this job. He was a doctor, for God's sake - not a tour guide. The students he was guiding looked at him with young, eager eyes, but the doctor could tell that they were getting bored. Everywhere they had been that day was either empty or unavailable. For the first time in his life he wished for a disaster to bring in a few victims - ones that he could save, of course; he didn't want anyone to die - but these students could at least write up the experience and make him look pretty good. Why couldn't they have shown up during the 16-car pile up earlier in the day? He had been a hero then. The doctor smiled as he remembered the satisfaction of the ECG returning to the ble-bleep, ble-bleep after he had administered CPR for 10 full minutes. He was a god, whether it was in surgery or in the ER. That Lucy Knight was what was keeping him down. Always calling his mistakes and making him do "the right thing." She was cute, there was no doubting that. But too young looking and too strict to the rules. His grin changed to a scowl as he remembered what had happened after his spectacular save that morning: she had threatened to report him to Kerry after violating a DNR. He gritted his teeth in frustration. He was not usually one to violate a DNR, but this had been different. Somehow. He always managed to convince himself that they were all "different." Except when anyone else did it- then it was wrong.  
  
Realizing that the students were still looking at him expectantly, he shook the thought out of his mind and forced himself to smile again. "Shall we continue?" he asked, striding to the door of the OR. He could show them how to wash their hands; there wasn't anything else to do. All of a sudden his pager blared, stopping him in his tracks. Finally! he thought, reaching for his pager. Squinting at the code that he interpreted as "ER," he whirled around characteristically and started to walk hurriedly towards the ER. "Come along, children, and see your first emergency," the doctor declared. Hopefully the patient would still need saving by the time he got there.  
  
"Um, Dr. Carter, I get sick at the sight of blood," one of the four students told him weakly.  
  
"Then you're in the wrong profession, sir," the doctor told him matter-of- factly. "And one more thing - " he faced the student - "I'm not Dr. Carter. I am much better looking than Dr. Carter."  
  
A female student stifled a giggle. She had seen Dr. Carter in the hall; no way did this short, bald man compare to the gorgeous man named Dr. Carter. She swooned silently.  
  
"I'm Dr. Romano," Romano stated. "Don't forget it again or I'll be forced to tattoo it on your forehead." Backing through the doors that led to the stairs, he continued. "Keep up, kids, fast as you can," in his usual patronizing tone - these "kids" were 20 year old medical students. "You can't be a doctor without being winded!" He looked at the student who was looking more and more sick at the prospect of seeing blood. "You go sit in the waiting room or something and meet up with us later. I've got enough to do without cleaning up your vomit," he said with a sense of importance. Beep beep, his pager urged him to hurry up. "Looks like you three are in for a treat," he said to the remaining three students.  
  
----------------------------------  
  
My January friend  
  
I'm wantin you again  
  
I wanna touch you  
  
Every single heart that beats  
  
---------------------------------  
  
"Jesus, Peter!" Carol cried as she rushed into the ER, adorned with a yellow cover-up, goggles, and white rubber gloves. "What part of 'I'm not on right now' don't you understand?! I need to go home!" She brushed a few strands of her black curly hair away from her face. "Isn't there anyone else in this hospital who's actually supposed to be working right now?" Her eyes fell to the patient, who she immediately recognized. "Oh my God," she whispered. Quickly she set to work, checking the faint beats of the ECG and looking for the BP, only to find it shockingly low. "GSW?" she asked, bewildered.  
  
Doug looked up as if hearing her voice for the first time. "Proximal clavicle, puncture in the superior left lung, and-" he turned the body over slightly - "thoracic vertebra 5."  
  
Carol's heart sank. There was no way that last one could be repaired. If the spinal cord had been hit - and upon further inspection, she found that it was - the most optimistic prognosis was that the patient would be permanently paralyzed from the chest down. And that was very improbable, Carol realized bleakly, since its unlikely she will even live. She was petrified with the realization that all the doctors in the hospital couldn't put the broken one back together again.  
  
However, she still had to try. She had to try her hardest. She checked the BP once again, discouraged by the continued drop. "BP's 70 over 40," she shouted. She's lost too much blood, she thought sadly. She knew by now that there wasn't any point in keeping track of the BP, it was falling too rapidly to get an accurate reading.  
  
"Dammit!" Benton yelled, still furiously working on the wound to the patient's lung. He was afraid he was going to have to crack her in the ER - something he hated doing. He knew that the wound to the spine was the most critical, but somehow - and very unprofessionally - he could not bring himself to work on it. A quick look had told him that it was irreparable. To further investigate it would only prove him right. Benton usually loved being right, but at times like this, he couldn't bear it.  
  
Suddenly the doors burst open. Everyone looked up, hoping to see another doctor to help out. Benton had paged nearly everyone in the ER (except for her, of course.she was the one who needed to be saved) and yet no one had bothered to arrive, save Doug and Carol. His fury at his colleagues' incompetence only ignited the overwhelming passion he was using to save his patient. He looked up at the opening doors, hoping to see anyone who might help him save this woman's life.  
  
However, he was disappointed to see two uniformed officers entering the room instead of a doctor. He furiously returned to his work, focusing as intently as he ever had before.  
  
The officers rushed to the patient, only to be pushed back by Carol. "Is she stable?" one officer asked.  
  
Carol glared at him. "Does she look like she's stable?!" she asked angrily.  
  
The officer glared back. "I need a description of the gunman. He's still at large." He looked around at the doctors and nurses who were working frantically. "Did anyone see anything?"  
  
A woman burst into the room just then, wearing a yellow ER gown and goggle. She hobbled past the officers and approached the woman on the table. "What the hell happened?" she yelled, surveying the woman's injuries. She then looked around the room. "And where is everyone? Aren't more people on than this?"  
  
"I'm not on, Kerry," murmured Doug and Carol at the same time, concentrating on their tasks.  
  
"Well then who exactly is on?" Kerry cried, then added hastily, "Besides." she gestured to the patient. She checked a chart that he had carried in. "Carter, Knight, Chen, Lockhart, Kovac, Malucci.they're all on! Where are they?!"  
  
"You're talking to the wrong person," Benton replied angrily. "I've been trying to figure that out for myself." An officer began to inspect the patient, noting the wounds and the patient's status. "Somebody get them outta here!" Benton yelled. Carol escorted the officers out of the room, ignoring their protests.  
  
All of a sudden Malucci came tearing in, forgetting his trademark smart-ass comment upon entering the ER. He leaned over the patient's face and closed his eyes painfully. "So it's true," he mumbled. The exhaustion had been shocked out of his system when he had received the page, and when he had heard Yosh lamenting over the disaster outside the room. All the nurses were crowded outside the door, as well as the reception staff and many of the patients who had been waiting in the waiting area. Except of course for Romano's fourth student, who sat breathing through a paper bag.  
  
"Malucci, get out," ordered Benton. There wasn't any real reason why Malucci should leave, but Benton just needed to concentrate. Malucci had the ability to break his concentration like no one else. Except for her, of course.  
  
"No way! I'm going to help!" yelled Malucci.  
  
"Dammit, Malucci," Benton warned. Malucci stood his ground. Surveying the situation, he decided that the next thing to do was to shock her. He picked up the paddles, ready for action.  
  
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. whined the ECG as it went flatline. Carol let out a deep breath. There was nothing left to do. It tore her apart to give up on any patient, especially one of her friends. "Call it?" she asked weakly after a period of silence.  
  
"No!" shouted Benton. He ripped the paddles from Malucci's hands and pressed them to the patient's chest. "Charge it to 100, Carol!"  
  
Carol stayed still. "Peter."  
  
All of a sudden, a voice was heard over the shriek of the ECG. "Where the hell are all the pediatricians in this hospital?" Romano burst in, shouting. Three medical students were at his heels, looking around the room in amazement, furiously taking notes.  
  
"Get them out of here," Doug growled, breaking his long silence.  
  
"No." Romano crossed his arms. "They want to see an emergency. So they stay." Satisfied, he glanced away from Doug and back at Benton. "So where are all the pediatricians? I see Ross over there -" he glared at Doug momentarily, then back at Benton - "but not Finch. There's a mother out here that's having a fit about not seeing a pediatrician for two hours. Don't we aim to please around here?" he added, purely for the benefit of his students. "Now where is Cleo Finch?  
  
Carol shut off the ECG, ending the monotone shriek abruptly. Benton looked up at the clock, fighting tears that would shatter his reputation. "Time of death, 20:38," he said, quietly answering Romano's question.  
  
--------------------------------------  
  
Time stood still Monday morning yeah  
  
Showed me what I had to see  
  
It's not the way I thought it should be  
  
Oh yeah  
  
You're my January friend  
  
And every heart that beats pretend  
  
My January friend  
  
You're my January friend  
  
And every heart that beats tonight's pretend  
  
---------------------------------------  
  
So that was the intro to my story! (kind of hard to believe that it was just an intro, right? I know it was very, very long.) I will continue it immediately.but please, email me at dreamaway18@hotmail.com, I'm begging you!! I need serious help!!  
  
One more thing.I tried to make it interesting by making every doctor seem like Carter before I actually said their names. I did that for a reason.you will see why in due time. 


	2. Fast as You Can (2/7)

Song: "Bulletproof" by the Goo Goo Dolls  
  
  
  
------------------------------------------------------  
  
Do you listen to yourself  
  
Never live for someone else  
  
Do you like the way you feel  
  
Nothing hurts when no one's real  
  
She wants to shake this scene  
  
Yeah she wants to shake with me  
  
She's not looking for the holes in all the lies  
  
-------------------------------------------------------  
  
The trauma room was completely silent. Carol, Doug, Benton, Malucci, Lydia, Kerry and Romano stood around the gurney in some kind of dull shock. Well, actually, only the first 5 were saddened - Romano just stood there in the awkward silence until he got bored. "Well, young doctors, it's time to visit psych," he said much too cheerfully. The three young students slowly broke their trances and followed Romano out the door.  
  
Kerry was the next to speak. "How did this happen?" she choked, not wanting to show any emotion but finding it hard to hide her impending tears. "Where did it happen? Here, in the ER? In the parking lot, at her house, where?"  
  
None of the doctors heard her increasingly urgent questions; they were having enough trouble remembering to breathe. Each felt like they had been punched in the stomach. Their eyes were fixed upon the gurney, watching Cleo's face for any movement, any animation at all. But there was none.  
  
Just then the doors burst open, and one of the two burly officers stormed in. He was accompanied by Haleh, who was urging "Please, just let the doctors work!"  
  
The officer looked at the patient, the silenced machines, and the devastated looks on the doctors' faces. "Dammit, she died," he informed the other officer. He glared at Carol. "If you had just let me get a description of the gunman before -"  
  
Carol glared right back at him and shouted, "She wasn't even conscious when she was brought in! How dare you blame me for this! I was just doing my job!" Doug, quickly noticing Carol's anger rising, and he stepped over to her and began to usher her out of the room. Carol, however, wasn't finished. "Maybe if you had done your job, Cleo would still be alive! What makes you think any of this is my fault?!" She continued shouting as Doug led her out of the room, and everyone could still hear her as they exited through the doors.  
  
After a moment of silence, Benton touched Cleo's face with his comparatively large hand. He closed his eyes in anguish, then stormed out of the room.  
  
Everyone watched Benton leave except Kerry, who approached the officer. "When did this happen? Has the gunman been apprehended? Is he loose in the ER?" she asked him, her questions getting faster and faster as they came to her mind.  
  
"It happened at about 8 o'clock - about 40 minutes ago," he answered. "It was a sniper. He had already taken several victims before she-" he gestured to Cleo's lifeless body - "and two more of your docs showed up on the scene. She was shot 3 times, but the other doctors were unharmed. I don't really know any details beyond that." His face was a mixture of grief and anger. "They had to bring her back here."  
  
"Who were the other two doctors?" Malucci asked quietly. "And where are they?"  
  
"Well I'm not sure about who the other doctors were, but I know that both of them returned to County," the officer answered. "Actually now that you mention it, I saw them going into the elevator on the way down to the ER. There was Dr. Finch in the gurney, and a man and a woman bringing her to the ER. I had to catch another elevator, so by the time I got to the ER Dr. Finch was already here, and the two doctors were gone." He looked around the room and peered out into the ER. "I haven't see them since."  
  
Kerry turned around to Lydia. "Who brought Cleo down to the ER?" she asked.  
  
Lydia pondered for a moment. "I.I'm not really sure," she said dejectedly. "When I got here, Benton and Chuny were the only ones working on her. It seemed strange at the time, to have only one nurse and one surgical consult, but then Benton had Randi page Luka, Carter, Abby, Lucy, Chen, and Malucci." She glanced at Malucci. "And only Malucci showed up."  
  
Something wasn't adding up to Kerry. "I'm going to find them and find out what happened," she said as she started to leave the trauma. She seemed unusually composed, but as she opened the trauma doors by shoving her cane into them forcefully, everyone could see how deeply she was suffering.  
  
The room was silent. Suddenly Malucci sprang into life, knocking into a tray as he rushed to leave the trauma room. Lydia and the officer were respectfully quiet, until Lydia decided to get some facts. "How many victims were there total?" she asked. "And why weren't they sent along with Cleo?"  
  
"The last I'd heard, there were 12 injured," the officer responded, then grimaced as he looked down at Cleo. "And one dead. They brought everyone but Dr. Finch to Mercy. One of the last things Dr. Finch said before she lost consciousness was to bring her here, to County."  
  
"But how could they get all the victims to Mercy safely? Wouldn't it have been a better idea to send a few criticals here, instead of all of them to Mercy?" Lydia was still confused.  
  
"There was no need to transfer any patients to County," the officer told her. "The shootings occurred at Mercy."  
  
--------------------------------------------------  
  
I want to bulletproof your soul  
  
Would you like to lose control  
  
I won't let you fall until you tell me so  
  
----------------------------------------------  
  
".Happy birthday dear Angela, happy birthday to you!" The room burst into applause as the four waiters finished their song. A beaming woman stared into the cake that the waiters had given her during their song and smiled at the man she was with, who smiled back. She then took a deep breath and blew out the candles. The room applauded again, and the woman smiled and kissed the man she was with. Everyone in the restaurant went back to their meals as the waiters took the cake back into the kitchen to be sliced, and the couple didn't end their kiss until the cake was brought back out again.  
  
"Oh, Mark," Elizabeth Corday said dreamily, "Look at that couple over there. They seem to love each other so much. Just look at them!" she exclaimed, pointing Mark towards the couple, who were now playfully smearing frosting on each others noses. Elizabeth sighed happily. A year ago she would have been incredibly jealous of the couple, but as she moved her gaze from the couple to Mark Greene, who was sitting across the table, she knew how good she had it. She loved being with Mark. She loved spending every waking second with him, and now that they were vacationing in New York together, she had realized that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. He was the only man in the world who could make her happy. She gazed at him lovingly, silently thanking God for Mark's very existence.  
  
Mark, meanwhile, was scarfing down an enormous steak, hardly stopping to breathe. All week he had been aching for a good steak, and somehow the cafeteria steak at County didn't fulfill his need. But now that he and Elizabeth were vacationing in New York, he could stop focusing on the daily struggles of the fast paced ER and on relaxing - and consuming steak.  
  
Obviously he wanted to be with Elizabeth also; after all, it was their one- year anniversary. He loved her with all his heart, and he didn't know where he would be without her. Never before had he felt this strongly about a woman this far into the relationship. In fact, he had been contemplating asking Elizabeth to marry him in the spring. He had suggested New York City for their long-awaited vacation; not because he loved the city, but because he knew that Elizabeth had always dreamed of going there. *The two best parts of my life, here at the table with me,* he thought happily. *Elizabeth, and steak.* He chuckled at his shallow thought.  
  
"Mark, you're going to choke if you eat it that quickly," laughed Elizabeth, placing her elbows on the table and folding her hands under her chin. "And I'm not in the mood for yet another resuscitation!"  
  
Mark looked up at her, his cheeks bulging. "Mmmph-fff?" he asked with his mouth full.  
  
Elizabeth laughed again. "You're disgusting!" she giggled playfully. Mark attempted to smile despite his full mouth. He leaned across the table and jokingly puckered up for a kiss. "Eww, no!" Elizabeth shrieked.  
  
Mark finally swallowed his food. "What, you don't love me anymore?" He pretended to be hurt. Unable to keep the frown on his face, he smiled at her momentarily, and then turned back to his steak. His stomach churned at the prospect of finishing the giant steak, but he knew that after the fuss he had put up about eating steak that night, he felt obligated to finish it. He glanced at Elizabeth's untouched salad, and looked at her questioningly. "Not hungry?" he asked.  
  
"If you hadn't been so involved in your steak," teased Elizabeth, "you would have noticed that I'd already polished off my meal, and that I'd ordered an extra salad." She took a bite of the salad, then flinched in disgust. "And that they'd used the wrong dressing."  
  
Mark smiled, and cocked his head slightly. "Want some steak?" he asked, grinning.  
  
Elizabeth burst into laughter. "No thank you," she responded, still laughing. Usually she only felt this light-hearted when she was drunk, but she noticed that she was acted so much happier when she was with Mark. He brought out the best in her.  
  
All of a sudden, Elizabeth gasped and reached for her cellular phone. "Oh my God, I forgot to check my messages!" she exclaimed as she dialed the number to her machine and put the phone to her ear.  
  
Mark looked at her skeptically. "You want to make a call to Chicago on your cell? That's going to cost a fortune," he told her in his classically frugal manner.  
  
Elizabeth stuck her tongue out at him as she continued to listen to the phone. "I'm expecting a call from Romano about a patient," she informed Mark. He made a gagging noise and Elizabeth shushed him.  
  
"What would you do about it here?" Mark asked.  
  
"Nothing.I just want to know if the patient made it, and." she trailed off as she listened to a message intently, and growing more and more pale by the second. Mark looked at her, concerned.  
  
"Elizabeth, what is it?" When she didn't answer, he leaned in towards her. "Elizabeth?"  
  
Elizabeth slowly closed the phone and looked at Mark. "What is it?" Mark asked again.  
  
A look of horror and shock was fixed on her face. "We've got to go back to Chicago," she said simply.  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
What are we  
  
(Whatcha wanna be)  
  
Everything  
  
(Thatcha wanna be)  
  
All I need  
  
(Right in front of me)  
  
I've known before  
  
--------------------------------  
  
"Step lively, young doctors," Romano commanded. They were hustling through the halls of psych, not stopping in any rooms or to talk to any doctors. *The sooner I finish up this tour, the better,* Romano thought. He despised the fact that he had allowed Kerry to convince him to give the stupid tour. It was very out of the ordinary for Romano to do a favor for anyone, especially Kerry. But as soon as Kerry had mentioned that one of the students was the son of the Head of Surgery, Dr. Herrington, in a large hospital in California, Romano had suddenly felt very generous. To do such a favor would further his career in ways he could only dream. Perhaps he could finally leave this hospital and move on to bigger and better things. He looked at the handsome young student and pushed back the doubt he had in the student's medical skills. He needed to be as nice to Herrington as humanly possible if he ever wanted to work in California.  
  
The only thing keeping him in Chicago was.her. He closed his eyes when he thought of her: her beautiful curly hair, her voice that was the most lovely sound Romano had ever heard, the fire in her eyes as she protested everything Romano said. Elizabeth Corday was the only woman he considered his equal, and the only woman worthy enough of his affection. He was in love with her.  
  
Snapping back to attention after slamming into a gurney in the hallway, he thought about where he could possibly bring the students now. *I've taken them everywhere in this damn hospital,* he thought irritably. He turned to the students and threw up his hands. "Any questions?" he asked.  
  
The female student raised her hand timidly. "Where's Ben?" she asked.  
  
Puzzled, Romano cocked his head. "And who is Ben?" he inquired.  
  
"Ben Herrington.the fourth student," answered one of the male students.  
  
Shocked that he had let his investment disappear, Romano started to yell. "I thought you were Herrington!" he cried.  
  
"Uh, no," the student said sheepishly.  
  
"How should I know where he is? Why didn't any of you tell me that he was missing earlier?!" Romano cried.  
  
"I tried to," said the male student. "You weren't listening."  
  
Romano angrily stepped over to him, and even though he was at least 6 inches shorter than the student, he still appeared to tower over him. "You did nothing of the kind," he snapped. "I would have heard you if you had tried to tell me that Herrington was missing!"  
  
The student looked as if he was about to defend himself again, and he would have had not a surgical nurse walked up behind Romano and, her eyes widening and her arms waving frantically, mouthing "No! Give up!!" The student closed his mouth and, gritting his teeth, said "Sorry, Dr. Romano."  
  
Satisfied that he had broken yet another youthful spirit, Romano whirled around and started barking orders. "Now we need to find Mr. Herrington. Any idea where he might be?"  
  
The female student spoke up again. "Um, I think he went to sit in the waiting area during the trauma, Dr. Romano."  
  
Romano could feel himself growing infuriated. The one thing he could NOT stand was incompetence, and these students reeked of incompetence. "And why didn't you tell me that while I was talking with -" he searched for the male student's name tag, but realized that he didn't care - "this guy?"  
  
The female student studied the tiles on the floor as she searched for an answer. "Well, um, you.I."  
  
Romano threw his hands up exasperatedly. "It doesn't matter now," he said with a twinge of cruel sarcasm. "Let's just go find young Mr. Herrington, shall we?"  
  
---------------------------------------------  
  
Would you come my way  
  
Or did you burn out to the end  
  
Would you come my way  
  
Should have listened when you called my name  
  
---------------------------------------------  
  
Kerry buried her face in her hands and wept. She was sitting outside the ER entrance, her cane leaning against the wall next to her. She had been brave while questioning the officer, fighting the tears she was sure would come at any second, and still had to be brave when the entire staff wanted to know about the situation. But now.the tears flowed rapidly as she completely unraveled outside County General.  
  
The fact that so many doctors had failed to answer their pagers made her angry, but it also unnerved her. Five of her most reliable doctors and med students had suddenly become unavailable. She knew that they all had showed up to work that day; they had all worked on the 16 car pile-up together. So why all of a sudden had they stopped responding to their pagers?  
  
Kerry swallowed a sob and lifted her head. She had scoured the ER looking for John Carter, Lucy Knight, Deb Chen, Abby Lockhart, and Luka Kovac, but to no avail. She had begun to search the rest of the hospital but had suddenly become too weak to continue through County's halls. Her emotions had gotten the best of her, and as she wept outside the ER doors she mourned the loss of Cleo Finch. She had a strange maternal instinct about the younger doctors at County, a feeling that was usually accompanied by Mark Greene's paternal instinct. But Mark was in New York, leaving Kerry to face this all alone. She just didn't have the strength.  
  
While Cleo's death and the sudden disappearance of a portion of the ER staff weighed heavily on her mind, Kerry was also concerned about the information the officer had given her. He had mentioned that Cleo and two other doctors had arrived at the trauma, but he had failed to mention what had happened with the other doctors. She wanted to presume that they had returned safely, and that after they had brought Cleo to the ER they had simply been called away. But nothing was ever that simple at County General.  
  
Kerry thought hard. The officer had said that the other doctors had been a man and a woman. There were currently two men and three women who had disappeared. The man had either been Carter or Luka, and seeing how Kerry hadn't seen either of them since the pile-up, she didn't know which one had gone to Mercy for the trauma. Of the three women, Abby and Lucy were med students, and Kerry couldn't imagine that Carter or Dave would allow their pretty young students attend an area where there was a sniper. So Chen must have gone.  
  
*Unless, of course, Carter was the man who went, in which case he would probably bring Lucy along for instructional reasons,* Kerry thought. She closed her eyes in confusion. There were so many possibilities, but only one answer. And apparently, there was no way to get the answer. No one in the ER seemed to know who had gone to the trauma - Kerry had asked every person she had seen.  
  
Suddenly Lydia's words came back to her. "When I got here, Benton and Chuny were the only ones working on her. It seemed strange at the time to have only one nurse and one surgical consult, but then Benton had Randi page Luka, Carter, Abby, Lucy, Chen, and Malucci."  
  
*Benton and Chuny had been the first ones to work on Cleo,* Kerry thought. *They must know who the two doctors had been.* Suddenly rejuvenated, Kerry stood up, reached for her cane, and headed into County to find Chuny and Benton.  
  
----------------------------------------------  
  
Yeah she wants to tear you down  
  
Then she leaves without a sound  
  
It's like falling backwards into no one's arms  
  
So I'll bulletproof my soul  
  
And I'll never let you know  
  
I won't let you fall until you let it go  
  
-------------------------------------------  
  
The ER was silent. No patients had been brought in since Cleo, so the ER was still, with the ever-present air of grief. Lydia, Haleh, Yosh, and Malucci were seated in the lounge, not speaking. The coffeepot beeped twice, but one seemed to notice. Each person was absorbed in his or her own emotions and feelings.  
  
Yosh broke the silence by letting out a sob that he hadn't been able to hold in. "She didn't deserve this," he sniffed. "This shouldn't have happened."  
  
"Who the hell would be sick enough to shoot innocent people from the top of a building?" Haleh said in disgust.  
  
"I just can't believe that it happened at Mercy," Lydia mused. "I know it's across town.but still, it seems too close for comfort. I don't know why."  
  
"Probably because it's another hospital," Haleh told her.  
  
"Or because they killed one of our doctors," Malucci spoke up angrily.  
  
The nurses all looked at him, shocked. Finally Lydia spoke again. "So he's been caught, right? Did they catch him?"  
  
"The officer wasn't sure, and on the news it said that he was still at large," Yosh answered, still trying not to cry.  
  
"They haven't caught the son of a bitch?!" cried Malucci. "How hard could it be?! It's one guy!"  
  
"Cleo was the last one shot," Haleh informed Malucci. "They think he fled after that."  
  
"Probably got scared after shooting a doctor," Lydia commented.  
  
Suddenly the lounge door opened and Kerry stormed in. "Is Chuny in here?" she inquired.  
  
"Nope," answered Malucci.  
  
"Then where is she?!" Kerry was exasperated. "And Benton?" Seeing everyone's blank looks, Kerry asked, "Well has anyone seen Carter, and Lucy, and Abby, and Luka, and Deb-"  
  
"Jing-Mei," everyone corrected her.  
  
"Whatever!" Kerry said, stressed. "If you see any of them then tell them that I'm looking for them." Frustrated, she stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind her. The group looked at each other, puzzled.  
  
"Yeah right, like I'd ever sacrifice a friend to someone like Festus," Malucci muttered. Lydia chuckled, and so did Haleh and Yosh. The chuckles turned to giggles, and the giggles quickly turned to laughter. Even Malucci, unaware that his comment had been funny at all, started to laugh with them. The tension in the room was broken as the four laughed their hearts out; how good it felt to smile again! *Cleo would have been laughing the hardest,* Malucci thought, *she always thought the name Festus was suiting to Weaver.* The mere thought of Cleo stopped Malucci's laughter and caused his huge smile to slowly fade. Cleo would never be able to laugh at his jokes again. She wouldn't be able to laugh at anything.  
  
One by one, the nurses noticed Malucci's somber expression and stopped laughing. They seemed to realize why they were there all of a sudden. The grim cloud hung over the ER once again.  
  
Lydia finally spoke. "I wonder where everyone is," she asked to no one in particular.  
  
"Carter doesn't ditch shifts," Haleh said, then glared at Malucci momentarily. "Unlike some people." Malucci didn't even notice, but if he had he wouldn't have rebutted the comment anyway. He wasn't in the mood.  
  
"Lucy doesn't ditch, either, and I know that Luka and Jing-Mei would rather die than ditch a shift," Lydia said.  
  
"But who knows about Abby.after all, she IS Dave's student," Haleh teased, obviously trying to get a rise out of Malucci. But again, Malucci was lost in his own thoughts.  
  
"Abby's a good student; she wouldn't ditch," Yosh defended both Malucci and Abby with his comment.  
  
"Then where is she?" Haleh asked. "And everyone else, for that matter?"  
  
"Wait a second," Lydia said, suddenly urgent. "The officer said that Cleo and two other doctors arrived at Mercy in the chopper. Cleo was the last one out, and when she was shot they brought her back here. He didn't know what happened to the other doctors. Maybe they left the others behind."  
  
"No way," argued Malucci, finally broken from his trance. "They wouldn't have left anybody behind. Even if Cleo was hurt they would have tried to stabilize her until the other doctors finished with their patients, or they would have forced the other doctors to come along. No way would they have just left." He sat back into the sofa, satisfied by his answer but unsettled by the situation.  
  
"What else did the officer say?" asked Haleh, ignoring Malucci. "Did he say who the doctors were?"  
  
"He didn't know," responded Lydia. "All he said was that it was one man and one woman."  
  
"It's not Abby," Malucci retorted. "She didn't tell me that she was going."  
  
"It's got to be Carter and Lucy," said Haleh. "It's the only combination that fits."  
  
"It could be anyone," Yosh murmured. "We don't know that Carter and Lucy are the only combination that fits."  
  
The room was quiet again. One doctor was dead and five were missing, two of which were potentially dead or injured. And underneath the dread, there was also an element of fear. If this could happen to their friends.then what was keeping THEM safe?  
  
--------------------------------------  
  
What are we  
  
(Whatcha wanna be)  
  
Everything  
  
(Thatcha wanna be)  
  
All I need  
  
(Right in front of me)  
  
I've known before  
  
--------------------------------------  
  
The surgery was dark and silent. There were no surgical patients today, so the table was cold and the surgical tools were clean and shiny. Dr. Anspaugh looked in through the windows, and put his forehead against the glass as he wished that Cleo had made it to this room. She would have lived if it weren't for the wound in her back. Anspaugh had known little about Peter Benton's and Cleo Finch's relationship, but he had seen all he needed to know in Benton's eyes as he had passed him in the hall. Anspaugh sighed. Watching over all these doctors like an overseeing patriarch was exhausting.  
  
Suddenly Anspaugh noticed a movement in the dark room. Lifting his head from the window, he entered the room and saw Dr. Peter Benton sitting in a chair in a dark corner. His shoulders were slumped, and his bent head snapped to attention upon hearing Anspaugh enter the room. Quickly he began to speak. "Oh, I'm sorry, Dr. Anspaugh, I didn't know you had a surgery in here. I was just." Benton was at a loss for words to describe what he was doing in the room. "Mourning" and "grieving" didn't really describe it.  
  
Anspaugh shook his head and put his hands in his pockets. "No surgery, Peter. I just wanted to know how you were doing." When Peter hung his head again and didn't respond, Anspaugh continued. "I know how hard this must be for you. The important thing to know is that there was nothing you or I or anyone else in that ER could do."  
  
There was a long pause before Benton spoke again. "It keeps happening," he murmured.  
  
Anspaugh bent down a little. "What did you say?" he asked.  
  
"It keeps happening," Benton repeated. "I've lost every woman I've ever had. And every time I'm with a new woman I love her more than the last. I had just started to love Cleo even more than I loved Elizabeth. And then she leaves me." He knew he shouldn't be pouring his heart out like this, but Anspaugh was practically his father. He trusted him.  
  
Anspaugh remained standing, deep in thought. "Cleo didn't leave you," he said. "She was taken from you."  
  
Peter lifted his head angrily. "Left, taken, whatever. She's gone. And she didn't fight."  
  
"What do you mean?" Anspaugh asked.  
  
"I tell my patients to stay with me, to fight," Benton explained mournfully. "She didn't fight. I guess I wasn't worth fighting for."  
  
Anspaugh sighed. Had the sorrowful man in front of him been anyone but Peter Benton, Anspaugh might have a chance to talk some sense into him. But when Benton had an idea in his head, no one could change his mind. "I'm sorry you feel that way," Anspaugh said softly. "I hope that someday you'll realize how wrong you are about that." Anspaugh took one last look at Benton, then left the broken-hearted man alone in the cold, dark surgery room.  
  
-------------------------------------  
  
Would you come my way  
  
Or did you burn out to the end  
  
Would you come my way  
  
Should have listened when you called my name  
  
-------------------------------------  
  
The door opened with a "click" as Carol and Doug entered their apartment. The ride home had been silent; neither Carol nor Doug really wanted nor needed to talk about the weary day. Carol had calmed down as soon as they had left the ER, and Doug had become stone-faced as soon as Carol's angry face had begun to soften. His square jaw was locked angrily, and at times during the ride home Carol thought he had heard his teeth grinding. Carol had stopped being so angry with the officer; she was now angered at the injustice of life. Sometimes she hated her line of work. She felt uncomfortably helpless when she knew someone could not be helped. When that person happened to be someone she knew.it created a fear alongside the helplessness. Carol hated to be afraid, and she hated to be helpless.  
  
Carol knew that Doug felt the same way. Like any other doctor, he despised losing patients. Carol also knew that he and Cleo, both pediatricians, had become friends. Doug seemed to be feeling an emotion between grief and fury, and his serious face was naturally portraying the latter. She didn't even have to talk to him to know how he felt - she could read his eyes like no one else could.  
  
Doug collapsed into the sofa, and Carol dropped her purse and her coat next to him as she headed into the nursery. It was days like these that made coming home to her girls so much sweeter. Holding her daughters in her arms was the best therapy she should ever receive, and right now she needed it more than ever.  
  
Suddenly Carol's mother rushed out of the nursery. "Shhhh!" she hushed. "The girls are asleep."  
  
Disappointed that she had gotten home too late to put the girls to bed, Carol walked back into the living room and sat on the sofa next to Doug. "How were they, Ma?" she whispered.  
  
"They were angels, perfect little angels, just like always," Mrs. Hathaway said in her slight accent. "After you didn't come home when you said you would be home, I just put them to bed myself. Why were you so late? You said this morning that you getting home at 6. It's almost -" she checked her watch - "9:00!" Seeing Carol's worried expression at the thought that the girls were up late, Mrs. Hathaway quickly added, "I put them to bed at 7:30, don't worry. They weren't up too late."  
  
A period of silence followed as Carol leaned back into the sofa, Doug rubbed his eyes with his forefinger and thumb, and the two finally felt the relief of being home.  
  
"What happened at work today, Carol?" Mrs. Hathaway asked. "Why did you stay so late?"  
  
Carol contemplated for a moment before answering. There was too much to say and she was too tired to say it. "Big trauma at the last minute, Ma."  
  
Her mother raised one eyebrow. "3 hour trauma?"  
  
Carol sighed. "No, it was only 20 minutes ago. Before it I." her eyes lowered, "I stayed with a patient."  
  
Mrs. Hathaway shook her head. "There are so many people at that hospital who don't have little babies to come home to," she said. "Why did they make you stay?"  
  
Carol sighed again; her mother wouldn't be happy until she got the whole story. "It was my patient. And the trauma was a doctor who got hurt. She was shot.no one else was there to help." Her eyes rose and flashed as the mention of the day's happenings brought the anger back in an instant.  
  
"How is she doing?" Mrs. Hathaway was very interested now. "Who shot her? Was it at the hospital?" Her eyes became pitted with worry. "Carol, why would you stay so long when there is danger at the hospital? You could have been shot too -"  
  
"Ma, I'm fine," Carol said crossly. "The shootings were across town. And no, the doctor isn't fine, she didn't make it. She died."  
  
"Oh, no." Mrs. Hathaway looked stricken. "Was she a friend?"  
  
"Well.I didn't really get a chance to know her. I guess I do consider her my friend, though." Quickly she added, "She and Doug were very close. They worked together most of the time. She was a pediatrician too."  
  
Mrs. Hathaway glanced at Doug, who hadn't said a word all evening. Then she turned back to Carol. "Well, sweetie, I'm very sorry for what happened to your friend. I should be getting home now." She headed towards the door, kissing Carol on the forehead as she left. "I'll see you later." With that, she left the apartment.  
  
The apartment was silent. Carol stared straight ahead, as Doug stared straight down. The room was crowded with the same grim atmosphere as was present in the ER. Becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the tension, Carol finally spoke. "I can't even imagine what Peter's going through right now," she commented. "He must be a wreck."  
  
Doug finally spoke, keeping his eyes lowered. "It should have been me, Carol," he said quietly.  
  
Shocked, Carol looked at Doug. "What?"  
  
"It was my shift," Doug explained. "Cleo offered to take the last hour of it so I could go find you. If I had stayed for the last hour of my shift then Cleo would be alive right now."  
  
"And you would be dead," Carol said gently. She moved closer to Doug and turned his face towards hers. "You shouldn't be angry with yourself, and you shouldn't feel guilty about anything. What happened was not your fault. That hour saved your life." The tiny smile returned in her eyes. "Think of what you would lose - what the girls and I would lose." A moment of silence passed, then Carol continued. "My girls won't grow up without a father. I feel terrible for Cleo and her family, and Peter, but I am so grateful that it wasn't you."  
  
Doug looked into her eyes and hugged her. Both exchanged a simultaneous sigh as they tried to make the pain go away and the relief set in a little more. Doug held Carol tighter, and silently thanked Cleo for saving his life - all 4 of them.  
  
---------------------------------------  
  
Would you come my way  
  
Or did you burn out to the end  
  
Would you come my way  
  
Should have listened when you called my name  
  
---------------------------------------  
  
A man lay unconscious in a pool of his own blood. His arms and his legs were sprawled in unnatural positions; the positions a body takes when a mind cannot control it. His chest rose and fell, and the gash across the back of his head flowed bright red blood, which spilled across the tiled floor and under the metal gurney. Faint light lit his face for a moment, then it disappeared as another person quickly exited the dark room, dropping a bloody cane into the trash can outside the room, and heading up County's stairs. Now the unconscious man lay alone in the cold, dark room, and the air still smelled of formaldehyde. It was just like a tomb.  
  
------------------------------------------  
  
Should have listened when you called my name  
  
Should have listened when you called my name  
  
Should have listened when you called my name  
  
-------------------------------------------- 


	3. Fast as You Can (3/7)

Song: "Amigone" by the Goo Goo Dolls  
  
  
  
SUMMARY OF EVENTS SO FAR (for those who are having a tough time keeping track of everything):  
  
8:00 - County's chopper arrives at Mercy; Cleo is shot  
  
8:10 - Cleo is revived and County's chopper leaves Mercy  
  
8:20 - Chopper arrives at County, Cleo is brought to ER  
  
8:38 - Cleo's death is called  
  
CURRENT TIME: 9:00  
  
- Kerry is looking for the 5 missing doctors (Knight, Chen, Carter, Lockhart, Kovac)  
  
- Doug and Carol are at home  
  
- Mark and Elizabeth are on their way home from New York  
  
- Romano is searching for a missing med student  
  
- An unconscious man is lying in the morgue  
  
----------------------------------------  
  
Every time you point your finger  
  
Three more point right back at you  
  
I'm not sayin' that it's something wrong with life  
  
'Cause that's a sad excuse  
  
---------------------------------------  
  
"Where the hell is my cane?" Kerry shrieked. She had just begun to search the third floor for the 5 missing doctors at about 9:30 when Randi had called her to the reception desk for a phone call. Dr. Anderson, The ER Chief at Mercy, had wanted to see how Cleo was doing and to give Kerry any details she needed. Unfortunately, Dr. Anderson did not know the identity of the other two doctors. He had been sorry to hear of Cleo's death, but he had also given Kerry some news that she had been seeking.  
  
"No one inside Mercy had been hurt," Dr. Anderson had told her. "The sniper had been on the roof and was shooting people walking on the street. Your helicopter, thinking that the shootings were occurring inside the hospital, happened to land right in the line of fire. Evacuation of the hospital hadn't been a possibility, since there were bullets flying all over outside. Instead we had completely closed its doors, locking all medical personnel and patients inside. The original plan was to transport all the victims of the sniper to County, where it was much safer."  
  
"Why hadn't that happened?" Kerry had inquired.  
  
"The sniper changed his aim from the street to the chopper," Dr. Anderson had answered. "After Dr. Finch had been shot, the shooting abruptly stopped. A few of Mercy's doctors, including myself, rushed out of the hospital to care for victims, and once I reached your chopper I found that Dr. Finch had been shot twice, once in the lung and once in the shoulder, and was unconscious. The wounds were serious, but not life threatening. She regained consciousness after about 10 minutes. She kept demanding to be brought to County, despite numerous warnings that she would not survive the trip. But she wouldn't listen, and eventually we let her go on the chopper to County. The shootings never started up again after County left, and every victim had survived." *Except for Cleo, * Kerry had thought sadly.  
  
However, Kerry had noticed that Dr. Anderson had failed to mention the wound in Cleo's spine that been responsible for her death. "Dr. Anderson, while I'm glad that I finally found out what was going on, but I couldn't help but notice that you didn't mention the wound in Cleo's back, specifically in her thoracic spine. When did that happen?"  
  
"I worked on her," he had said, obviously confused. "She only had the two wounds. Once those had been temporarily stabilized I had wanted to bring her into our ER, because I knew the treatments we had given her were only temporary. But there was no wound in her spine. She woke up and was talking to us; she had even tried to stand up to attend to victims! She couldn't have done that if she had such a fatal wound."  
  
Kerry had been silent for a moment. She then continued, "Could it have happened while she was being loaded into the helicopter? Maybe." she trailed off, not really knowing how to rationalize what she was saying. *Surely the doctors would have notice a bullet flying past their heads and striking Cleo; not to mention that if she had been lying down in the gurney there was no physical way that a bullet could have reached her back, * she had thought. This realization suddenly frightened Kerry. It meant that Cleo had been shot a third time after she had been loaded into the helicopter; a precision shot which was impossible to hit unless the gun was at close range. *The gunman might have gotten aboard the chopper and shot Cleo in the air, * she had thought. *So where is he now? *  
  
A chill ran down Kerry's spine as she suddenly felt someone watching her. *I'm imagining things, * she told herself, shaking the eerie feeling off. *I'm jumping to conclusions, and now I'm imagining things. *  
  
Kerry had ended the conversation abruptly after that; there was no need to upset Dr. Anderson and the entire Mercy staff over something she didn't know was even right. She had picked up the phone to call the police back to the hospital for an investigation of the hospital, but a quick thought of the ER breaking into hysterics at the thought of a killer on the loose was enough for her to put the phone back down.  
  
Kerry had then been set to continue her search for the missing doctors, but became frustrated when her cane had gone missing. She had tried to look for it from her chair, but she couldn't find it without getting up. And she couldn't walk more than a few feet without falling when she didn't have her cane. *What a cruel prank, * Kerry thought. She didn't know if she should feel hurt, angry, or amused at the immaturity of her staff.  
  
Realizing that she wouldn't be able to find it by herself, she began to holler. "Where is it? Where the HELL is my cane?" she cried.  
  
The ER had livened up a bit in the 20 minutes since Cleo's death. While it was obvious that the grief and sadness was still very present, it seemed that the ER staff had decided to get down to business. A few patients had come in with minor complaints; while they were interruptions of the grieving process, they were welcome distractions as well. But still, no one seemed to hear Kerry's cries for her cane. Not only were five doctors missing, there might also be a gunman in the hospital. And Kerry was trapped, unable to walk, unable to help anyone.  
  
---------------------------------------------  
  
An age old game of rat and mouse  
  
Chasin' us from house to house  
  
I'm not sayin' that it's something wrong with you  
  
It's wrong with me as well  
  
---------------------------------------------  
  
"HELP!" Lucy Knight screamed at the top of her lungs. She beat on the door with both fists and frantically kicked the base of the door with her feet. "SOMEBODY!!!"  
  
"It's no use, Lucy," Abby said wearily. She was sitting on the floor in the back of the room, clutching her knees to her chest. "Nobody can hear us. I told you, this room is in the middle of nowhere."  
  
Lucy stopped her screaming and turned to Abby. "What you didn't tell me was that we could lock ourselves in!" She walked away from the door and started pacing around the room. "Why did we have to come all the way up to OB? They have everything we need in the ER supply room!"  
  
Abby sighed. "They restock the OB supply room more frequently than they do in the ER. I just figured." she trailed off, trying not to cry. "Never mind."  
  
Lucy's angry face softened in sympathy. She sat next to Abby. "I'm sorry for yelling. It's just.when I haven't had my medication I tend to freak out about small stuff." She sighed. "We're such med students, aren't we?"  
  
Abby looked at her tearfully. "What do you mean?" she asked, confused.  
  
Lucy chuckled slightly. "Do you think anyone else in this hospital could manage to lock themselves INSIDE a supply room, on a floor where no one can hear us yelling?"  
  
Abby smiled and wiped away her tears. "We ARE pretty pathetic," she agreed.  
  
Lucy smiled back, the noticed her pager sitting on a shelf. "Well, they stopped paging us, at least," she said, picking the pager up and attaching it to her belt. "That must have been some trauma. They probably paged us 20 times each." She cringed. "I really don't want to face Kerry and have to explain why we missed it." Her eyes widened in shock. "And Carter too.oh God, I'm not going to hear the end of this for a very long time." She lay down on the floor and covered her eyes with her forearm. Remembering Abby, she quickly she turned and added, "But really, I'm not blaming you at all."  
  
Abby groaned. "I don't know why not, it's totally my fault." She covered her face with her hands in an attempt to stop her oncoming tears. She didn't know which was worse: Lucy being angry with her for doing a stupid thing, or Lucy being overly nice to her for doing a stupid thing. "Hey Lucy, what time is it?" she asked, her words muffled by her hands.  
  
Lucy removed her forearm from her eyes and checked her watch. "Nine," she answered, then returned her arm over her eyes. "We've been here for forty minutes."  
  
Abby nodded, then removed her hands from her face. "Hey when you said that you didn't take your medication." she trailed off, not really knowing how to phrase her question. She paused, then asked, "What are you taking?" As a med student she was curious, but as a friend she was concerned.  
  
Lucy contemplated for a moment, then decided to tell her. "I'm taking Ritalin," she said with a twinge of embarrassment.  
  
Abby, surprised, simply said "Oh." She sensed that she had hit a nerve. *I've got to learn to mind my own business,* she thought as she silently cursed herself. She lost more friends by being overly concerned about that.  
  
Lucy was quiet for a second, then started again. "I know I'm too old to still be taking it.it's just too hard to stop. I can't sleep, I'm awful with the patients, I snap at people." she closed her eyes. "It really makes Carter mad for some reason. He thinks I should just give it up cold turkey. Obviously he's never had a dependency for a drug or he'd know how hard it is to quit."  
  
Abby listened sympathetically until Lucy mentioned Carter. She decided to find out if there was any truth to the rumors that she kept hearing about the two of them. "Speaking of Carter-" Abby grinned, and Lucy groaned - "I've heard a lot of rumors about the two of you."  
  
Lucy shot up from her position on the ground. "What have you heard?" she demanded.  
  
Abby smiled - she loved gossip. "I've heard that you were together, I've heard that you're still together, I've heard that you were never together, I've heard that you have a child together -"  
  
"What?!" shrieked Lucy. "Who said that one?!"  
  
"Randi," answered Abby. "But I think she just told me that to get rid of me."  
  
Lucy groaned, then lay back on the floor and covered her eyes with her arm again. "So what's going on with you two? How do you feel about him?" asked Abby.  
  
Lucy thought for a minute lifted her arm, and said, "Have you ever had a really bad cramp? I mean, so bad that it made you want to keel over and die, or tear through your throat just so you could transfer the pain and release the pressure?"  
  
"Yeah," Abby answered.  
  
Lucy covered her eyes again. "That's Carter," she said angrily.  
  
-------------------------------------  
  
Are you alive  
  
Amigone  
  
(Miracles gone wrong)  
  
Is it too late to call and tell you to be strong  
  
Are you alive  
  
Amigone  
  
(Miracles gone wrong)  
  
Was the poison in our love there all along  
  
Amigone  
  
------------------------------------  
  
"John!" Jing-Mei cried. "You can't go to sleep. Come on, John. Wake up!" She frantically shook him by the shoulders, carefully holding his left leg still. There was a bullet wound - entrance and exit wounds, to be exact - through his left hamstring, about halfway from his ankle to his knee. "John, please, you have to stay with me!" Jing-Mei shouted through tears.  
  
The wind on the roof chilled her to the bone, and she wiped the tears from her eyes as they only made her colder. Suddenly John's eyes fluttered open, and he gazed at Jing-Mei. "I'm cold," he said softly.  
  
Overcome with joy, Jing-Mei put her hands on Carter's cheeks to warm them up. "I know," she said, "Me too. But I know that someone's going to be up here any minute to take you to ER. It's been -" she checked her watch - "a half hour or so. Someone should be here very soon." Jing-Mei tried to stay calm but she knew that he couldn't last too long on a rooftop in the freezing cold with a bullet wound. *Please,* she pleaded the door into the hospital with her eyes, *please burst open and have someone from the ER come and find us. Please.* she rubbed Carter's arms to keep them warm and kept praying.  
  
She had found him at about 8:25, five minutes after Cleo had been brought in. Jing-Mei had made her way to the roof to assist in bringing the patient to the ER, and had heard that the patient was Cleo as she furiously ran to the top of County General. Once she got there, however, she found no sign of the trauma besides the landed helicopter (radio disabled). She turned around to leave the roof and hopefully join the others in the trauma, but had been shocked to see John Carter unconscious and bleeding, slumped on the wall. Jing-Mei had rushed to his side and, after getting him conscious, was doubly shocked to find the door to County was shut and locked from the inside.  
  
That was a half-hour ago. Carter had been slipping in and out of consciousness during the time due to his blood loss, and when he wasn't out cold he was completely dazed. Jing-Mei had attempted several times to find out who had shot him and left him for dead, but Carter seemed to have no recollection of the incident. All he would say is "I'm cold," "It hurts," and "My pager;" he had struggled to sit up and check his pager throughout his twenty pages during Cleo's trauma.  
  
"Deb." Carter's eyes were fully open now, and Jing-Mei didn't bother to correct him as she softened her worried face and looked down at him.  
  
"Yes, John?" she asked.  
  
"What.happened?" he pleaded, wincing in pain as he struggled to move to a more comfortable position. Jing-Mei quickly responded by easing the tense muscles in his leg.  
  
"You were shot, John," she told him gently but matter-of-factly. Debating on whether or not to go into the specifics when he was in this dazed state, she finally decided to keep it simple. "We don't know who did it, but I came up to the roof and found you here. I think it happened a few minutes before I got here." She suddenly remembered that he, like all trauma patients, might need to be briefed on where exactly he was. "You're on the roof of County General Hospital, after returning from a on-call trauma -"  
  
"I know where I am, Deb," Carter replied irritably, glaring at her slightly.  
  
Her eyes widened a bit as she sensed his sudden alertness. "Then do you remember what happened to you - who did this? When? Were you shot at the scene or when you got back?"  
  
Carter closed his eyes, ran his fingers through his hair, and sighed deeply. "No, I don't," he responded, almost sadly. All of a sudden his muscles relaxed and his eyes began to flutter again. "I just need to go to sleep.just for a few minutes."  
  
Jing-Mei held him by the shoulders again and shook gently. "No, John, you can't go to sleep," she told him. "Please.you've lost too much blood to go to sleep. Only a few more minutes. Come on, John!"  
  
Carter opened his eyes weakly. "Deb, I need to ask you something," he said softly.  
  
A chill suddenly caught Jing-Mei as she leaned closer down. "Shhh, John, you can tell me later, when we're in the warm hospital and you're completely healed. But you can't give up now, John, you have to fight!" Tears filled her eyes as her words grew more and more forceful.  
  
Carter shook off her words and looked at her as intently as he could. "No, I need to tell you this," he insisted. "I need you.to tell Lucy.that I.that I." he closed his eyes.  
  
*Love her?* Jing-Mei completed his sentence silently. While she felt deflated at his lack of effort to stay alive, she couldn't help but wonder why her heart had sank so quickly when her mind had finished Carter's thought. *So he loves Lucy, so what?* she told herself. *You knew there was something going on between them. So why do you feel like you've lost the love of your life? You haven't felt that way for John Carter for.well, years. So why are these feelings coming back now, of all times?*  
  
Suddenly Carter's eyes opened again. "I need you to tell Lucy that I. I have a patient for her in Exam 3," he said faintly. His eyes drooped and his head dropped with his last word.  
  
*He's delusional,* Jing-Mei thought, surprised at her sense of relief. Quickly she snapped out of her dreamy trance and began to frantically wake Carter up again. "John.come on, stay with me. Please, John, wake up. You can't sleep now. We only need to wait a few more minutes and somebody will be up to help us. Come on, John.John."  
  
--------------------------------------------  
  
Heavenly intoxication  
  
Love's been marred by medication  
  
Ain't it funny how a life can take a turn  
  
When the end is near  
  
-------------------------------------------  
  
"Mr. Herrington!" Romano called though the halls, his remaining med students at his heels. "Come out, come out, wherever you are!" He glanced into each exam room in the ER as he rushed past them, keeping his cool but becoming more and more frantic with each empty room. *Where in hell could that kid have gone?!* he wondered angrily. Quickly Romano made a turn around the reception desk and nearly ran into his students, who had been following him so closely that they had not seen his unprecedented turn.  
  
"Why isn't he still in chairs?" Romano hollered, still pacing through the hallways and craning his neck to peer into each exam room. "What reason would he possibly have to wander off and make me look all around the damn hospital to find him?!"  
  
The remaining students exchanged frightened glances as they followed their rapidly erupting leader. If Dr. Romano was scary when he was calm, he was terrifying when he was angry.  
  
Suddenly Romano turned around and stared menacingly at the students. "If I don't find him in the next five minutes, I will be sure to tell your supervisor that you three had a major role in his disappearance. Understood?"  
  
Petrified, the students nodded their heads in unison.  
  
"Good," he snapped. He rapidly turned around and strode down the hall, the three students tagging along like timid ducklings.  
  
"Benny, where are you?" the female student whispered, frantically craning her head down every twist and turn down the hall. The sooner she got away from this lunatic Romano, the safer she would be.  
  
----------------------------------  
  
Are you alive  
  
Amigone  
  
(Miracles gone wrong)  
  
Is it too late to call and tell you to be strong  
  
Are you alive  
  
Amigone  
  
(Miracles gone wrong)  
  
Is it too late to face the truth that it was wrong  
  
Amigone  
  
--------------------------------  
  
"Damn!" Elizabeth cried as she slammed the phone into its cradle. Exasperated, she ran her fingers through her tasseled curly hair and stepped out of the booth. She strode over to Mark, who was seated and looking over a flight schedule, and stood in front of him. "My credit card is maxed out," she told him angrily. So we're stuck here, and hell's breaking loose at County. I talked to Kerry. She told me that after Cleo."she reverently lowered her eyes, ".after they lost Cleo, everything's been falling apart. Kerry can't find half of the doctors who are on tonight, so not only is that a concern but it also means they're incredibly short-handed." She sighed deeply, then sat next to Mark and looked at the flight schedule he was reading. "When's the next flight to Chicago?"  
  
"11:00, which is in an hour," Mark answered, his nose still buried in the schedule. "It arrives at 11:00 Chicago time. Then there's another one tomorrow morning at 9 am. And don't worry about your credit card; I'll pay for the flight." He looked at Elizabeth and studied her carefully. "Which flight do you want to take?"  
  
"The one that leaves tonight, of course," Elizabeth said quickly. "I want to get back as soon as possible."  
  
Mark's eyes dropped, and he folded the flight schedule and put it in his pocket. "I was actually hoping that you would want to take the one that leaves tomorrow." Seeing that Elizabeth was about to protest, he chose to continue. "We both have been looking forward to this vacation for so long, Elizabeth, and now we're going back after 2 days instead of the original 5. Why don't we just stay one more night in New York, so we can avoid getting back to reality for as long as possible?" He looked up at her. "There's nothing we can do there now. I feel just as guilty as you do about Cleo. I wish I could have helped with the trauma, too."  
  
"They needed us there, Mark," Elizabeth said softly.  
  
Mark shook his head. "They did everything they could. Nothing we could have done would have saved her. We both talked to Kerry. Cleo's wounds were too severe to be repaired. You know that." He tilted her face towards his. "Don't blame yourself."  
  
Elizabeth's frustrated face softened. "I'm not, really. I just wish." she trailed off, not knowing exactly what she wished. "Peter's completely devastated."  
  
"Yeah, I'd imagine so," Mark agreed. Suddenly, he became confused. "When did you talk to Peter?"  
  
"He called me on my cell phone shortly after I'd called Kerry back," Elizabeth explained. "He just needed to talk to someone."  
  
Still confused, Mark asked, "Why didn't he talk to Anspaugh or someone?"  
  
Elizabeth looked at him. "The man's girlfriend just died under his own care! If I had just been killed and you hadn't been able to save me, would you want to talk to Anspaugh, of all people?" she inquired.  
  
Mark turned away and faced forward. "No, I guess not," he answered. He paused for a moment, then turned back to her. "I would want to talk to you." His kind face melted into a joking smile. "So you'd better not get killed anytime soon, because then both Peter and I will be in trouble."  
  
Smiling into his eyes, Elizabeth sank back into Mark's arms. "I'll do my best," she told him. Suddenly she closed her eyes painfully. "I know we should go back as soon as possible," she said softly, "but I don't know I can adjust to the change that's going to meet us when get there."  
  
Mark kissed the top of her head, which was leaning on his shoulder. "We'll just head back tomorrow, then," he told her. "There's no reason why we need to head back tonight. They can deal without us for one more night."  
  
Suddenly Elizabeth's call phone rang in her purse, and she unfolded herself from Mark's arms to answer it. "Hello, Elizabeth Corday," she said efficiently. "Oh, hello again, Kerry. Mark? Oh, ok." Elizabeth handed the phone to Mark.  
  
"Hey," Mark said into the phone. "What's up." He listened for a few moments, and Elizabeth could hear Kerry's voice through the phone. "Yeah. Well, actually, we're going to be coming tomorrow morning. Mm hm." Elizabeth listened as Kerry's muffled voice grew louder and angrier. "Yes, I understand that, Kerry, but there's nothing we can do tonight anyway - what? Kerry, what's going on?" His face became concerned and his voice became more urgent, and Elizabeth leaned in to find out what Kerry was saying.  
  
".Got to go.trauma." was all Elizabeth could decipher from the other side of the conversation. However, Mark had heard more. Quickly he said "All right," and turned the phone off. He handed the phone to Elizabeth and stood up quickly. "Get your suitcase," he instructed her as he slung his duffel bag over his shoulder. "We've got to get back tonight."  
  
"But, Mark," Elizabeth protested as she picked up her suitcase and followed him through the rows of chairs "What did Kerry say? Why do we need to go back tonight, all of a sudden?"  
  
Mark stopped and turned around to her. "They found Luka," he said slowly. He then turned around and continued rushing towards the ticket desk, leaving Elizabeth paralyzed in shock.  
  
-----------------------------------------------  
  
I'm not sayin' that its something  
  
I'm not gonna play along  
  
I'm not wishin' for a miracle  
  
That miracle's gone wrong  
  
And you're too strong  
  
-----------------------------------------------  
  
"What do we got?" Kerry cried, hobbling (thanks to a spare crutch in the ER supply room) over to the speeding gurney in the hallway.  
  
"20-or-30-something year old, hit in the back of the head with a blunt object," Romano called out. He was on one side of the gurney, pulling it through the hall with his med students pulling the other side. "Lost a lot of blood. No ID.""  
  
"Robert, we don't need ID! It's Luka Kovac!" yelled Kerry. "Can't you recognize him?"  
  
"Who the hell is Luka Kovac?" Romano asked, searching the patient's face for any recognition.  
  
"ER attending.started here about a year ago," explained Kerry. "You're telling me you've never seen him, in a year?"  
  
"Oh, yes, foreign guy, I remember him." Romano answered. He chuckled. "Looks like somebody's got it in for you ER docs today."  
  
Kerry glared at him as she shouted, "What's the BP?"  
  
"BP's 90 over 50, pulse is 40," Haleh told her.  
  
"Pupils are.responsive," added Malucci, shining a light into Luka's eyes. "Looks like a fractured occipital bone, most likely a concussion."  
  
"First Cleo, now Luka," Chuny said through tears, putting everyone's first thoughts into words. "What the hell is going on?"  
  
Kerry said nothing, but rushed to the reception desk. "Get the police back over here," she hissed to Randi. She then rushed back over to the gurney and expertly rolled it into Trauma 2. "Somebody call X-ray and tell them to set up for a catscan!" Kerry ordered. "We need 4 pints of O neg in here!" Haleh ran out of the room to retrieve the blood. "Malucci, get a suture kit!"  
  
"But chief -" Malucci protested.  
  
"Malucci!" Kerry shot him a look of fire, and Malucci duly stepped out of the room. "Lydia, call X-ray!" Kerry yelled as she rushed to the head of the gurney. Lydia scrambled to the phone.  
  
"4 pints of O neg," Haleh called out as she attached the bags to a cart.  
  
"Pulse is up to 50," Chuny yelled.  
  
Suddenly the trauma doors burst open, and Anspaugh stormed in. "What's happened NOW?" he cried.  
  
"Romano found Luka unconscious in the morgue, with a blunt object injury in the back of the head," Kerry told him as she inspected Luka's wound. "Occipital fracture, probable concussion, and we are taking him to X-ray right now." She looked up from Luka's head and faced Anspaugh. "The wound isn't as deep as it looks. Obviously it's a considerable head trauma, but he might actually be ok." She turned around and yelled, "Malucci! Where are you with the suture kit?!"  
  
Malucci poked his head though the door. "There aren't any down here!" he yelled. "We finished them off in the pile-up trauma!"  
  
"Dammit!" Kerry cursed outwardly. "Where is Carol when I need her?!"  
  
"I can go see if they have any suture kits in the other ER supply room," Haleh offered.  
  
Kerry sighed, then turned to Haleh. "Hurry," she said weakly. "And Chuny, you go with her." Haleh and Chuny whirled around and ran out of the room.  
  
*I won't lose another one,* Kerry vowed. "Lydia, go up to OB and see if there's any suture kits up there."  
  
"All right," Lydia obliged as she dashed out of the room and down the hall.  
  
Malucci burst in, carrying a suture kit. "Found one," he said breathlessly.  
  
Kerry let out a sigh of relief. "Try to catch Lydia and tell her we've got a suture kit, so she doesn't have to go all the way up to OB," she told him.  
  
Malucci ran to the door, but caught himself in the doorway. "She's already in the elevator," he told Kerry. "She's pretty fast for an old chick- er, middle aged woman," he said sheepishly.  
  
"Damn. She'll have made the trip for nothing," Kerry commented as she reached for the suture kit and moved a chair close to the gurney. "Get me a local anesthetic," she instructed Malucci.  
  
"It's ok, Dr. Weaver, I'll do the sutures," Malucci told her.  
  
Kerry's shoulders visibly sank as she searched for a reason to do the sutures herself. Unable to find one, she handed the suture kit to Malucci and got up from her chair. "Thanks," she said simply. She walked out of the trauma room, only to find Anspaugh and Romano engrossed in conversation.  
  
"Don, Robert, I've already called the police to find out who did this," Kerry informed them.  
  
"There's no need, Kerry," Romano said sharply. "We already know who did it."  
  
Her eyes widening, Kerry asked, "You mean, you've found the killer?" she asked incredulously.  
  
Romano chuckled. "Hardly." He gestured towards Chairs, where a young man was sitting with his arms hugging his knees and his head resting on top of them. "Have you been acquainted with Dr. Herrington?" Romano inquired.  
  
Kerry nodded. "Isn't he one of the students I gave you this afternoon?" she asked Romano.  
  
"Yup," Romano answered, giving Kerry a slight glare for giving him the students in the first place. "The kid wandered off during Dr. Finch's trauma, so I've been looking for him for about a half hour now. I finally found him sitting outside the morgue, crying like a baby. He had blood all over his lab coat, and there was blood coming from the door of the morgue. So me, being naturally inquisitive, went inside and found the guy - Dr. Kovac, I guess? - out cold with a bashed in head. So I grabbed a gurney and brought him up here."  
  
"I still don't know what's going on," Kerry stammered. "What happened exactly?"  
  
"Apparently, young Mr. Herrington sat out during Cleo's trauma, then wandered down to the morgue and found Dr. Kovac, and then struck him on the back of the head," answered Anspaugh. "The police will be questioning him shortly."  
  
Kerry shook her head. "That doesn't make sense," she said. "Why was Luka in the morgue during Cleo's trauma? And why would the student go down to the morgue at all? And why would he hit Luka for no reason?"  
  
Romano shrugged. "My guess? Nutcase." He then headed towards the student.  
  
Kerry sighed and turned to Anspaugh. "I don't think the kid did it. I have a feeling that the gunman from the Mercy shootings is in the hospital, and that he's the one responsible for Luka's injury."  
  
Anspaugh looked concerned. "Why would you possibly think the gunman is here?"  
  
Kerry was set to explain, but was interrupted by Malucci. "Sutures are done, chief," he said efficiently. "We should take him to X-ray now. The sutures won't last too long. Once he gets the catscan I can put some more permanent sutures in."  
  
"Thanks, Malucci," Kerry said as she walked into the room. "Let's get him to X-ray!"  
  
---------------------------------------  
  
Are you alive  
  
Amigone  
  
(Miracles gone wrong)  
  
Is it too late to call and tell you to be strong  
  
Are you alive  
  
Amigone  
  
(Miracles gone wrong)  
  
Is it too late to face the truth that it was wrong  
  
Amigone  
  
---------------------------------------  
  
Lydia raced through the hall to the OB supply room, her heart beating rapidly. She knew she was taking too long - what if Luka was bleeding out right now? Or if he had irreparable brain damage, and no one could know yet because he needed the sutures before he went to X-ray? A thousand questions flooded Lydia's mind as she tore down the hall and finally reached the supply room.  
  
She reached for the handle - to find that it was locked. "Damn!" she cursed.  
  
Suddenly she heard something - voices? - in the room. "Is someone in there?" she called.  
  
Squeals of delight echoed inside the room as two female voices cried, "Yes! Help us! Let us out!"  
  
"It's locked," Lydia yelled.  
  
"Then get the key!" cried a voice, which Lydia placed as Lucy Knight's.  
  
"I don't have the key!" Lydia yelled back. "I don't know who has the key to the OB supply room!"  
  
"The janitor will," another, calmer voice, which Lydia could only place as Abby's, explained. "If he doesn't then it might be in the OB reception desk."  
  
Lydia sighed. "All right, but first tell me - are there any suture kits in there?" she yelled into the door. She could hear some rummaging around, and then, "Yeah, there's 6 or 7 in here," from Lucy.  
  
Lydia began to sprint down the hall again to find the key, but curiosity stopped her. "How exactly did you guys get locked in there?" she asked.  
  
Lydia could hear Lucy's familiar exasperated sigh, and Abby said, "I'm not exactly sure. We didn't have the key. This room never locks without the key."  
  
"Do you think someone locked you in?" Lydia asked suspiciously. "This sounds like one of Carter's lame practical jokes."  
  
"No, Carter was away at the trauma when we.er.got trapped in here," Lucy answered, sounding embarrassed.  
  
Lydia's ears suddenly perked up. "Carter went to the trauma? Are you sure?" she asked quickly.  
  
"Yeah," Lucy answered. "He wouldn't let me go, so Abby was going to show me this procedure while he was gone because the ER was dead, and the ER supply room didn't have the stuff we needed, so we came up here-"  
  
"Lucy, who else went to the trauma? And when?" Lydia asked anxiously. So far, three of the five missing doctors had been found; perhaps the last two could be found before they met the same fate as Luka, or - Lydia shuddered - Cleo's.  
  
"Um, I don't really know," called Lucy. "Oh! I know Cleo did!"  
  
"Yes, Lucy, I know Cleo went to the trauma.but who else? Was it Jing-Mei?" Lydia asked desperately.  
  
"No, Jing-Mei was here," Lucy answered. "I think it was Luka."  
  
"Yeah, it was Luka," Abby agreed.  
  
Lydia sighed. "It couldn't have been Luka," she told them. "The officer said that a man and a woman brought Cleo to the ER!"  
  
"What??" cried Lucy. "Why did Cleo have to go to the ER?"  
  
Lydia stopped as she realized that Lucy and Abby must have been locked in the supply room from the point even before Cleo was brought in. However, she didn't have time to explain now. "There was an accident," she said simply.  
  
Lydia could hear Lucy's voice becoming shaky. "She was shot at the sniper trauma, wasn't she?" Lucy asked tearfully. "What happened to Luka and Carter?"  
  
"You're sure Luka and Carter were the other two doctors who went?" Lydia asked hurriedly, not answering Lucy's question. She really had to find that suture kit.  
  
"Yes," Lucy yelled. "Now please get us out of here! I need to know what's going on!"  
  
"Lucy, I'm sorry, but you'll have to wait for a bit while I find that key!" Lydia yelled as she headed down the hall. She could hear a very distinct, "Shit!" and a furious pounding on the door by the time she was down the hall.  
  
As she rounded the corner, she was nearly run into by a speeding gurney, headed by none other than Jing-Mei, Haleh, and Chuny. "Lydia!" Haleh gasped. "We found Carter and Jing-Mei!"  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
Are you alive  
  
Amigone  
  
(Miracles gone wrong)  
  
Is it too late to call and tell you to be strong  
  
Are you alive  
  
Amigone  
  
(Miracles gone wrong)  
  
Is it too late to face the truth that it was wrong  
  
Amigone  
  
---------------------------------  
  
"As far as I can see, there's no long-term brain damage," the X-ray technician told Kerry. "He's got a major concussion but he should be waking up soon. I'd recommend him staying off his feet for a while as his balance might be impaired for a while." He watched Luka slowly coming out of the catscan area. "He's a lucky guy."  
  
*Luck might actually be on our side this time,* Kerry thought. She thanked the X-ray technician and walked into the X-ray room with Malucci. "Let's get him to Exam 4 and put in some better sutures," Kerry instructed Malucci as they wheeled Luka through the X-ray door and to the elevator.  
  
The elevator opened, and Kerry was met with four pairs of frightened eyes around a gurney. "Kerry!" Lydia cried. "Look!"  
  
Kerry looked down at the gurney, and her stomach turned for the third time that day as she immediately recognized the patient in the gurney. "Not again," she mused painfully.  
  
"We found him on the roof with a GSW to the lower left leg and possible hypothermia," Haleh barked. The elevator began to close, and she stuck her hand through it to make the doors open again.  
  
"I found him about an hour ago," explained Jing-Mei. "He had just been shot by the time I got up there, and when I tried to open the door again it was locked. He's been out for about 10 minutes now after lapsing in and out of consciousness for 50 minutes."  
  
Kerry rubbed her eyes tiredly as she said, "Take him to Trauma 2." She turned to Malucci. "I'm going to go with them, can you handle Luka's sutures?" she asked wearily.  
  
"No prob," Malucci acknowledged as she stepped aside for Kerry to step into the elevator. She did so, and mumbled a "Thank you. as she hobbled past him.  
  
"Sutures?" Lydia asked worriedly. "Did you find a suture kit?"  
  
Kerry nodded as she got into the elevator. As soon as she got into the elevator she began to speak to Carter. "Carter! Can you hear me?" she yelled as the elevator doors closed.  
  
"He's been unresponsive since he went unconscious about 10 minutes ago," Jing-Mei told them emotionally. "Every time he woke up, he could never remember what happened to him." She looked at Kerry with tears in her eyes. "What's going on?"  
  
Kerry looked straight back at her. "The gunman's here," she said, and for the first time, she was absolutely sure.  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
Are you alive  
  
Amigone  
  
(Miracles gone wrong)  
  
Is it too late to call and tell you to be strong  
  
Are you alive  
  
Amigone  
  
(Miracles gone wrong)  
  
Is it too late to face the truth that it was wrong  
  
Amigone  
  
----------------------------------- 


	4. Fast as You Can (4/7)

Song: "Full Forever" by none other than - The Goo Goo Dolls!  
  
  
  
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS SO FAR (don't read this if you haven't read the last 3 parts - that's cheating!):  
  
8:00 - County's chopper arrives at Mercy; Cleo is shot  
  
8:10 - Cleo is revived and County's chopper leaves Mercy  
  
8:20 - Chopper arrives at County, Cleo is brought to ER  
  
Carter is shot and left on the roof  
  
Lucy and Abby are locked in the OB supply room  
  
8:25 - Jing-Mei finds Carter on the roof; both are locked out  
  
Luka is hit in the head and left in the morgue  
  
8:38 - Cleo's death is called  
  
9:00 - Carol and Doug arrive home  
  
9:10 - Luka is found by Romano in the morgue and is rushed to the ER  
  
9:20 - Carter and Jing-Mei are found  
  
CURRENT TIME: 9:30  
  
- Carter is being rushed to the ER  
  
- Luka has just been sutured and has been admitted to the ICU, but is still unconscious  
  
- Lucy and Abby are still locked in the OB supply room  
  
- Police have just arrived  
  
- Um, hello people! There's a killer on the loose!  
  
---------------------------------------  
  
And I've had to fight  
  
Another blurred affair tonight  
  
Eyelids wrestle once again  
  
Never gonna see my friend  
  
Guided by the blinding white  
  
---------------------------------------  
  
"Where is Peter?" cried Kerry, limping around on her replacement cane. "All I need is a surgical consult!"  
  
"No one can find him, Dr. Weaver," Yosh said quietly. "His shift ends in an hour so he's probably still here. But no one knows where."  
  
A shiver went down Kerry's spine as she contemplated treating yet another injured colleague. Every time someone went missing, they always seemed to be found unconscious and bleeding. *I still don't know where Lucy and Abby are, * Kerry thought sadly, *and now Peter too? * Slowly she peeled the rubber gloves, covered in Carter's blood, from her small hands and threw them away.  
  
Suddenly, to Kerry's relief, Benton stormed into the room. He looked terrible; his face was twisted in a bland grimace but his eyes were wrought with concern. "Not Carter, too," he moaned, looking into the gurney.  
  
Kerry touched his arm. "It's all right, Peter, he's stabilized," she reassured him. "We just needed a surgical consult."  
  
Peter moved away from Kerry and began to examine Carter's wound. "Oh, man," he winced as he saw the entrance and exit wounds. "What the hell is going on?"  
  
"I think the gunman from the sniping is here at County," she said lowly, so no one else could hear.  
  
Peter's eyes widened. "Then what are we still doing here?" he hissed. "Look what keeps happening! First Cleo, then Carter!"  
  
"Luka, too," Kerry interrupted. "Robert found him unconscious in the morgue with a skull fracture."  
  
"Dammit!" Benton exclaimed, running his hand over his head. "Kerry, we need to evacuate. People are DYING. We have to get out of here, if not for us, then for the patients! We're putting them in danger by keeping them here!"  
  
"Peter, I . . ." she trailed off, then bent her head. "I don't know what to do," she admitted sadly. "The police will be here any minute to investigate the hospital and the attacks. Talk to them."  
  
Peter shook his head. "That's not good enough," he insisted. "Another person could die before they get here. We need to get everyone out - NOW!"  
  
Romano stepped into the room just in time to hear Benton's last sentence. "Oh, come on now, Peter," he commented in his typical sarcastic manner, "Isn't it exciting to have a killer on the loose? Where's your sense of adventure?"  
  
Benton glared at him menacingly. "She died an hour ago," he spat, then stormed out as he shouted, "Bring Carter up to OR as soon as possible," over his shoulder.  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
Have you left home in spite  
  
Knowing I'm alone tonight  
  
Waiting for the light of day  
  
Doesn't matter anyway  
  
It's nothing that I need to say  
  
----------------------------------  
  
The keys jangled through the old man's hands as he mumbled, "I know it was here a second ago."  
  
Frustrated sighs echoed through the room on the other side of the door. "Can't you just unhinge the door?" Lucy cried.  
  
The janitor shook his head skeptically. "Nope, can't do that. I know my key's around here someplace."  
  
Lucy voice got louder as she pressed her face against the other side of the door. "Look," she said through gritted teeth, "I've been in here for almost two hours. I need to get out!"  
  
Abby joined Lucy at the other side of the door and said calmly, "Can you at least tell us what's going on in the ER? What happened to Cleo Finch?"  
  
The old man stopped searching through his keys as he scratched his head. "Don't know. I think one doctor died. Don't know which one."  
  
"Was it Dr. Carter?!" Lucy cried frantically.  
  
"Which one is Dr. Carter?" the janitor asked.  
  
Lucy screamed outwardly as she pounded on the door. "I NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE!" she wailed.  
  
Suddenly the keys jangled louder as the old man separated one key from the rest. "I found it!" he said triumphantly. He put the key into the lock - and took it out again. "Hmmm," he said suspiciously. "Won't fit."  
  
"What do you mean, it won't fit?" Lucy yelled.  
  
"Something's jamming it," the old man said as he peered into the keyhole. "Looks like a piece of another key."  
  
"Well how do you fix it?" Lucy yelled impatiently.  
  
The old man scratched his head. "Well, I could get the crew down here tomorrow morning and we could get it open -"  
  
"No, NO!" Lucy screamed. "We need to get out NOW!"  
  
Suddenly, a man rounded the corner and sprinted down the hall to the supply room. "Why aren't they out yet?" he questioned the old man.  
  
The janitor pointed to the lock. "A key must've broken in the lock. We can't get it open till tomorrow morning."  
  
The other man sighed. "Ok, well move aside." He spoke into the door, "Stand back, you guys!" he called.  
  
"Dave?" Lucy asked. "What are you going to do?"  
  
"I'm gonna kick the door in," he answered, backing up.  
  
"NO!" squealed Lucy. "The door is made of steel! You'll break your leg!"  
  
"I can at least get it off the hinges," Malucci answered, rubbing his palms together mischievously. "Don't worry, Haleh kicked the door to the roof in, and I'm a lot stronger than her!"  
  
"The door to the roof is almost off its hinges anyway!" Lucy yelled, but she was too late.  
  
"Stand back!" Malucci hollered as he ran across the hall and expertly high- kicked the door with a thunderous BANG. "OW!" he screamed as he fell to the floor, clutching his ankle. "What the hell is that door made of?" he cried in agony.  
  
"Steel," the janitor informed him.  
  
Malucci glared at him as he rubbed his ankle. "Thanks," he said dryly.  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
And I've gone underground  
  
Never hangin' round  
  
Should have make it back again  
  
---------------------------------------  
  
"Yes, can I help you?" Randi asked, eyeing the burly officers VERY closely.  
  
"We need to speak to a Dr. Kerry Weaver," the officer replied curtly. "Where might I find her?'  
  
"I'm Kerry Weaver," Kerry said as she approached the reception desk. "Thank you for getting here so quickly."  
  
"Yes, well, Dr. Weaver, we're here to investigate the recent attacks on Dr. Carter and . . .uh . . . Dr . . ." the officer struggled.  
  
"Dr. Kovac," Kerry corrected him.  
  
"Yeah. Can you tell us what happened?" the officer asked.  
  
Kerry drew in a deep breath, and slowly, she explained everything. How Romano had been searching for a med student, and had found him - along with a bleeding Luka. How Haleh and Chuny had heard Jing-Mei pounding on the door from the roof; how they had gotten the door open and found Carter lying bleeding on the ground; how Cleo had been shot a third time on the way to County. "The only possibility for Cleo's third wound is if the gunman somehow met them here on the roof, shot her once, then shot Carter and left him there." she added. Sighing, she also said, "Dr. Romano seems to think that his med student over there is responsible for Luka's wound. However, I think the person who shot Cleo and Carter also hit Luka."  
  
The officers listened intently. "Where are the two injured doctors now?" one inquired.  
  
"Dr. Kovac is in the ICU, and Dr. Carter is in surgery," Kerry answered. "Both will be unconscious for a while."  
  
One officer turned around to the others. "O'Brian, you question Kovac when he wakes up. Thompson, you've got Carter. Powell, get a hold of Mercy and get some more details. Casey and I are going to take a look at the roof and the morgue. And remember -" he patted his gun - "be careful." The officers complied and separated.  
  
"Don't you think we should organize an evacuation?" Kerry asked worriedly.  
  
The officer eyed the busy hallway. "We don't know where the gunman is," he explained. "Or that he's still here. I don't see any reason to create hysteria until we know exactly what's going on."  
  
Kerry stared at him. "My colleagues are being attacked, one by one, and you don't think we need to evacuate?" she hissed. "How many more of my friends need to be killed before you think this is a big enough emergency?!"  
  
The officer sighed. "I have reason to believe that the gunman sneaked aboard your chopper posing as a doctor," he explained. "To evacuate everyone, we'd probably end up evacuating him as well. We need to find out exactly what's going on first." Not bothering to respond to Kerry's protests, he gestured to the remaining officer. "Let's go!" he called, and they headed to the elevator.  
  
------------------------------------  
  
Why can't the moon stay full forever  
  
Wednesday's bad but Friday ain't much better  
  
. . . Someone's hell  
  
Why can't the moon stay full forever  
  
Right now she's got nothin' on her mind  
  
------------------------------------  
  
"Dave, how are we going to get out of here?" Lucy wailed.  
  
"I don't know!" he yelled crossly, still rubbing his ankle.  
  
"Well, I suppose I could unscrew the lock from the door," the janitor offered.  
  
"Yes, do that!" Lucy cried. "Why didn't you do that in the first place?"  
  
"It'll wreck the door," the janitor explained. "I didn't want to wreck the door."  
  
"Man, I'll wreck YOU if you don't get that DAMN door open NOW!" Malucci yelled.  
  
"Ok, ok, I gotta go get my toolbox," the old man grumbled as he shuffled away.  
  
"He'll be another hour," groaned Lucy. "It's already . . . oh my God, it's 10:30!" Suddenly, she remembered that she had actual outside contact for the first time in two and a half hours. "Dave, what happened at the sniping trauma?" she asked worriedly.  
  
"You don't know?" he asked.  
  
"No . . . I think that was the trauma we missed, Lydia mentioned something about it," Lucy told him.  
  
Malucci was quiet for a moment, then said bluntly, "Cleo died."  
  
He could hear two gasps, and then, "What happened?"  
  
Malucci sighed; giving bad news to strangers when a patient died was hard, but giving bad news to friends about friends . . . it was a lot to bear. "She was shot at the sniping," he explained softly, "once in the lung, once in the shoulder, and once in the spine." He could hear Lucy moan at the thought of a bullet in the spine.  
  
"Oh, my God," Abby murmured. "How long ago?"  
  
Malucci checked his watch. "Two hours ago," he guessed.  
  
Both sides of the door were silent as the dark cloud from the ER quickly settled in the OB supply room. "I . . . I don't know what to say," he could hear Abby say. "I didn't know her that well. I feel really bad that I didn't know her better."  
  
Malucci began to respond but was interrupted by Lucy's abrupt "What about Carter?"  
  
Suddenly two policemen charged through the hallway, stopping near Malucci and the locked door. "What's the problem, doctor?" one of them asked.  
  
"There's two med students locked in there," he explained. "There's a piece of a key jammed in the lock."  
  
The officer turned to the other. "This is how the other two docs were locked on the roof," he said quickly. "Just a piece of a key, broken off."  
  
"Well, can you get it open or not?" Malucci yelled, still holding his ankle.  
  
The bigger officer inspected the door carefully; stepping back, he said lowly, "You better stand back, girls."  
  
"Hey man, I already tried that," Malucci warned. "That door isn't opening."  
  
Glancing at Malucci, the officer eyed the lock, rapidly raised his foot, and kicked the lock with a SLAM! as the door swung off of its hinges. Lucy and Abby shrieked, then quickly ran past the broken door.  
  
Malucci stared at the officer, amazed. "How did you do that?" he asked in awe.  
  
The officer shrugged. "Wasn't too hard - when you know what you're doing." He gave Malucci a smug glare, then motioned to the other officer. "C'mon, Casey, we've gotta get to the roof." The officers then jogged through the hall and towards the roof.  
  
Abby was inspecting Dave ankle. "You really smashed it up," she observed. "You'd better get to ER." Malucci sighed and nodded, as Abby stepped over the broken door to retrieve a wheelchair from the supply room.  
  
"No," Lucy said sternly. Abby and Malucci looked up at her, surprised. "I want to know what's going on before I go down there."  
  
Malucci looked at her as Abby helped him into the wheelchair. "Cleo, Carter, and Luka went to a sniping trauma at Mercy," he explained. "Cleo was shot three - no, two - or three . . ." he scratched his head as he struggled to remember what Kerry had told him about Cleo being shot once again in the helicopter. "Three times."  
  
"You told us about Cleo," Abby said softly, not wanting to hear it again. "What about Carter and Luka?"  
  
Dave was still turned to Lucy as Abby wheeled him down the hall. "Romano found Luka in the morgue with a blunt object injury to the back of the head. I sutured him," he said with a sense of importance. They rounded the corner and Abby pressed the button for the elevator. "When Dr. Weaver and I were taking him to sutures from Radiology, Haleh, Chuny and Lydia brought Carter down from the roof."  
  
"The roof?" Lucy cried, jogging alongside the wheelchair. "What happened?!"  
  
"I just got a glimpse of him," Malucci admitted, "but it looked like a GSW to the lower leg. They were bringing him to the ER as I was bringing Luka to sutures." The elevator doors opened and Abby guided the wheelchair inside.  
  
Lucy followed slowly. Pained, she slumped against the elevator wall and put her face in her hands. "What the hell is going on?" she asked tearfully.  
  
"That's what everybody wants to know," Malucci told her as the elevator doors closed.  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
And I've gone underground  
  
Obsessions I have found  
  
Couldn't make it back again  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
RING . . . RING . . . RING . . . RING . . .  
  
An arm reached across the nightstand and fumbled for the phone. "Hello," Doug mumbled groggily. "Mark . . . man, it's 11 o'clock . . . yes, I was asleep . . . what do you mean, it's early? . . . it was a long day, all right?" Suddenly, two identical wails echoed through the halls.  
  
Carol turned over sleepily. "I hate you, Mark," she moaned groggily. Slowly she stood up and stumbled to the nursery.  
  
"I was wondering if you could pick Elizabeth and I up from the airport," Mark explained to Doug.  
  
Doug rubbed his eyes and sat up slowly. "Yeah, sure, man," he yawned into the phone. Then he became more serious. "You hear about Cleo?" he asked.  
  
"Yeah," Mark said quietly. "And Luka."  
  
"What about Luka?" Doug asked, slowly becoming more alert.  
  
"Luka?" Carol poked her head in the door, clutching Tess. "What happened to Luka?"  
  
Doug shushed her as he listened. "Mark doesn't know," he explained to her. "Kerry only told him that they found him. He doesn't know what happened. What?" He listened to the phone, his brow furrowing deeper. "Oh, man," he moaned. "Ok. I'll be there as soon as I can." He hung up.  
  
Carol ducked into the nursery, then returned with both girls in her arms. "What's going on?" she asked, still slightly sleepy.  
  
Doug rubbed his eyes with his forefinger and thumb. "Mark said that Luka was found," he explained tiredly. "Then Elizabeth just told him that she just called County, and they found Carter on the roof with a GSW." He looked down as Carol gasped. "And now Mark wants me to pick him and Elizabeth up from the airport and drop them off at County."  
  
Carol sat on the bed slowly. "Luka . . . and Carter . . ." she murmured softly.  
  
They were still for a moment, not hearing the whimpers of the girls in Carol's arms. Suddenly, Doug stood up. "I'd better get to the airport," he said abruptly as he grabbed a pair of pants and slipped them on.  
  
"I'm coming, too," Carol told him as she placed the girls on the bed and started getting dressed as well.  
  
Doug just looked at her, knowing that arguing with her would be useless. "What about -"  
  
"We'll bring the girls," Carol answered quickly. "Mark and Elizabeth won't mind." Her eyes met Doug's, and for a moment they melted in each other's gaze. The moment was fleeting, however; it was interrupted by a wailing Kate.  
  
Carol tore her eyes away from Doug's and tended to Kate as she slipped on a pair of shoes. "What if we had stayed at County longer, Doug?" she asked after a few minutes of silence. It almost seemed to be a rhetorical question, but she answered it anyway. "We could have been shot, too."  
  
Doug was quiet. Carol continued to talk; she was used to Doug keeping quiet in times of crisis. "We should stick around after we drop Mark and Elizabeth off, just in case they need some help at County."  
  
Doug shook his head. "I don't want you or the girls in danger," he said firmly. "Whoever did this to the others could still be there."  
  
Carol opened her mouth to argue, then reached for the phone instead. "I'm going to find out exactly what's going on," she said as she dialed County's number. Doug, preoccupied, walked into the bathroom and shut the door.  
  
Sighing, he raised his head and looked himself in the eye. *I look awful, * he thought as he rubbed his chin and felt the stubble. He reached out and touched the smooth mirror, then, suddenly overwhelmed, he closed his eyes in anguish and leaned his forehead onto the cool glass. Damn.  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
Why can't the moon stay full forever  
  
Wednesday's bad but Friday ain't much better  
  
. . . Someone's hell  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
"Dr. Malucci!" Chuny cried, running out of a room and calling out into the hallway. Malucci turned around from his wheelchair as Abby stopped pushing it down the hall. "Luka's crashing!"  
  
Malucci struggled to stand; then, feeling his ankle crunch beneath him, sat back down again in pain. "Get somebody else!" he hollered, holding his ankle. "I wrecked my ankle!"  
  
Lucy tore past Chuny into Luka's room, greeted by several blaring machines and a frightened officer. "I - I don't know what happened," he stammered. "I was just waiting for him to wake up to ask him some questions!"  
  
Lucy ignored him as she raced to the doorway. "Carter!" she called through the hall before realized her mistake. *No . . . Carter's still in surgery . . . * she thought, her knees becoming weak and her stomach beginning to churn.  
  
"I'll page Dr. Weaver," Chuny offered as she ran from the room.  
  
Lucy turned around and stared in bewilderment at the scene around her - Luka, terribly pale, was lying in bed with tubes connected all over his body, a bag of blood on one side of the bed and a bag of IV fluid on the other side, and screaming machines all around. Lucy knew exactly what to do - she could see the defibrillator paddles on her right - but for some reason she was completely paralyzed.  
  
Abby rushed in, checking machines as she moved. "Dave!" she yelled. "We need you in here to tell us what to do!" She tore a readout from a machine and ran her fingers through her hair. "DAVE!"  
  
"Use the paddles and charge to 100!" he called out from the hall, desperately trying to wheel himself into the ICU room. *After all those times I played Wheelchair Hockey during graveyard shifts, I should be able to get across a hallway! * he thought, frustrated.  
  
"Charge it to 100, Lucy!" Abby called out as she took the paddles off the tray and held them above Luka's chest.  
  
Lucy didn't move. "Lucy!" Abby cried. "Charge to 100!" Seeing that Lucy still didn't move, she leaned closer to her. "We need to save him, Lucy," she said gently. "Pretend it's any other patient." Lucy looked at her with wide eyes.  
  
"Dammit, girls, shock him before it's too late!" Malucci cried, now right outside the door.  
  
Snapping out of her trance, Lucy rushed to the defibrillator tray and yelled, "Charged to 100!"  
  
ZAP - BUMP! Beeeeeeeeeeep . . . the machines still rang.  
  
"200!" Malucci called out, peering onto the gurney.  
  
ZAP - BUMP! Beeeeeeeeeeeep . . . "250!"  
  
ZAP - BUMP! Beeeeeeeeeeeep . . . "350!"  
  
ZAP - BUMP! Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep . . . . . .  
  
-------------------------------  
  
Why can't the moon stay full forever  
  
Right now she's got nothin' on her mind  
  
------------------------------- 


	5. Fast as You Can (5/7)

Song: "Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls  
  
  
  
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS SO FAR (don't read this if you haven't read the last 4 parts - that's cheating!):  
  
8:00 - Cleo is shot  
  
8:20 - Chopper arrives at County, Cleo is brought to ER  
  
Carter is shot and left on the roof  
  
Lucy and Abby are locked in the OB supply room  
  
8:25 - Jing-Mei finds Carter on the roof; both are locked out  
  
Luka is hit in the head and left in the morgue  
  
8:38 - Cleo's death is called  
  
9:00 - Carol and Doug arrive home  
  
9:10 - Luka is found by Romano in the morgue and is rushed to the ER  
  
9:20 - Carter and Jing-Mei are found  
  
9:30 - Carter is stabilized and brought to surgery  
  
Police arrive  
  
10:00 - Malucci breaks his ankle trying to kick the supply room door down  
  
10:45 - Lucy and Abby are let out of the supply room  
  
11:00 - Mark and Elizabeth arrive in Chicago; Doug and Carol go to pick them up  
  
Luka crashes  
  
CURRENT TIME: 11:30  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
And I'd give up forever to touch you  
  
Cause I know that you feel me somehow  
  
You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be  
  
And I don't want to go home right now  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
"Time of death . . . 23:30," Malucci stated sadly. Utter silence lined the background as Malucci wheeled out of the room furiously and Abby slowly replaced the defibrillator paddles on the tray.  
  
Lucy was in shock; she just watched the cold, pale, unmoving face for any signs of life, but found none. "Shouldn't . . . shouldn't we keep trying?" she asked weakly. Abby only looked at her with misery in her eyes.  
  
Romano strolled casually into the room, with Kerry on his heels. "Well now, I seem to be running into you ER docs everywhere I go," he smirked. "I know I'm beautiful, but this stalking simply has to stop."  
  
Kerry rolled her eyes as she inspected the gurney. "What happened?" she asked.  
  
"We were walking through the hall . . . and he was crashing . . . Malucci broke his ankle . . ." Lucy desperately tried to grasp onto a single explanation but her mind was going a mile a minute.  
  
Kerry looked up at her. "There was nothing you could have done," she said gently. "He had a major myocardial infarction. None of us could have saved him."  
  
Romano, obviously bored, commented, "Look, Kerry, I am a very busy man and I don't have time for the med student pep talks. I thought we were going to see how Ko - Kov - the foreign doctor I found -was doing."  
  
"For God's sake, Robert, the man's name is Kovac," Kerry said irritably. "It's not that hard to say."  
  
"He's next door," Abby said absently. "He crashed about a half hour ago but now he's stable. After we stabilized him we started to go back to the ER but found Mr. Stanson" -she motioned towards the body in the gurney- "crashing next door."  
  
"Thank you, Miss Lockhart," said Romano as he picked up the chart at the foot of the bed. "Why don't you find Mr. Stanson's family and tell them of the latest developments in his case?"  
  
The three women stared at Romano in awe, incredulous of his insensitivity. "What?" he asked, annoyed. Hearing no answer, he whirled around and left the room to go next door.  
  
Kerry followed, but added on her way out, "It wasn't your fault. You did very well." Suddenly she poked her head back in the room. "Carter's out of surgery now, if you want to see him." Abby and Lucy could hear her walking to the next room, then yelling, "Malucci! Get out of the damn wheelchair and get to work!"  
  
------------------------------------  
  
And all I can taste is this moment  
  
And all I can breathe is your life  
  
Cause sooner or later it's over  
  
I just don't want to miss you tonight  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
Jing-Mei watched Carter's chest rise and fall with each slow breath he took. Tubes ran along his bed and into his arms and nose, connected to several machines on either side of the bed. She watched as his hand twitched a little, then rested at his side. She tiredly ran her fingers through her short black hair and covered her eyes with her hand. Her elbow was rested on the bar of the gurney and her legs were crossed at the ankle. She opened her eyes and lay her chin on her hand, her eyes never leaving Carter's sleeping face.  
  
"Why do I feel this way?" she mused. "And about John?"  
  
Jing-Mei knew that something had happened between them on the roof, some sort of chemistry had ignited - from her side, anyway. He hadn't been exactly conscious enough to return her feelings. But why, after 5 five years, did she suddenly feel this way? They hadn't really gotten a chance to be very close since she had started to work at County again. She was always struggling to keep up with the demands of her job, and he always seemed wrapped up in his work . . . or in Lucy. Jing-Mei had always assumed that there was something going on between them, and for some reason, she had always felt a pang of jealousy whenever she was around. Jing-Mei sighed and brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. She never experienced anything like what she had felt towards Carter as she held him in her arms on the roof; it was a closeness that she had missed and that she now needed. It pained her to even contemplate seeing Carter and Lucy together in the halls again.  
  
Just then, Lydia walked into the room. "How's Carter doing?" she asked.  
  
Jing-Mei looked up from Carter. "He came out of surgery about 20 minutes ago," she told Lydia. "He should be waking up soon."  
  
Lydia nodded and checked his chart. "So they ruled out hypothermia, huh?" she asked.  
  
Jing-Mei nodded. "Thank goodness. Otherwise he probably would have slipped into a coma."  
  
Lydia leaned over Carter's sleeping form to retrieve a readout from a machine. "BP's much better," she observed. "I should go tell Kerry - she could use some good news." Eyeing Jing-Mei, she asked, "How are YOU doing?"  
  
Jing-Mei shrugged. "Physically I'm fine. But emotionally . . ." she looked back at Carter, "I'm a wreck."  
  
"Join the club," Lydia said sympathetically as she gave her a small smile and left the room.  
  
Sighing, Jing-Mei settled back into her chair and continued watching Carter breathe. The events of the night had exhausted her, and she wanted to sleep more than anything. But for some reason she couldn't tear her eyes from his face.  
  
It WAS a nice face, after all. His mouth was relaxed in a gentle curve; his full lips were parted slightly. His long nose was exactly the right size for his face, and it was set between his perfectly shaped cheekbones. His skin, paler than usual, had the slightest hint of stubble, which complimented his strong chin. His smooth, brown hair was combed into place but mussed from the day's events, and it moved a bit with each slow breath he took. And those eyes . . . Jing-Mei sighed in pleasure as she imagined John Carter's deep brown eyes, full of kindness and concern, looking into her own; his strong hands holding her small, feminine hands; his perfect lips turned into a slight smile, parting to say-  
  
Beep beep, beep beep! Startled, Jing-Mei reached for her pager, annoyed at it for interrupting her dream. "Leave me alone," she grumbled as she stood up to go to the ER. At the doorway, she took one last look at John Carter, sleeping peacefully. Yes, it was a nice face, indeed.  
  
--------------------------------------  
  
And I don't want the world to see me  
  
Cause I don't think that they'd understand  
  
When everything's made to be broken  
  
I just want you to know who I am  
  
-------------------------------------  
  
"Now, how long ago did you put the marble in your ear?" Lucy asked.  
  
"I told you, I didn't!" the little boy hollered. "Eric did!"  
  
"Shut up, you liar!" his brother yelled.  
  
"Now, now, it doesn't matter who did it," Lucy told them. "Right now we just have to get it out."  
  
"Is it gonna hurt?" the little boy asked, frightened.  
  
Lucy considered the procedure. "Not if you're a good boy and let me do my job," she told him.  
  
His brother smirked. "It's gonna hurt a lot," he assured his little brother.  
  
"NOOO!" the boy wailed, clamping his hand over his ear.  
  
Lucy sighed. All she wanted to do was to visit Carter, but once she got down to the ER there had been a flood of patients. Romano had insisted that she do her rounds before she took "another 2 hour break" (a fairly painful statement, considering). Luckily, Lucy had been able to take of dose of Ritalin before the huge amount of patients had arrived. Now that Luka, Carter, Malucci, and - Lucy winced - Cleo, were unable to do their rounds, Lucy, Abby, Benton, and Kerry were the entire ER staff for the night - and Benton had been faced with a mass amount of emergency surgeries. So of course, Lucy and Abby had to consult Kerry on everything they did, which led to a very slow shift. *At least Dr. Greene and Dr. Corday will be here soon, * she thought as she flipped through the chart and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Why does he have a marble in his ear this late at night?" Lucy asked the mother.  
  
"His brother put it in when he was asleep," the mother explained wearily. "I thought it would be better to bring him immediately, rather than wait for morning."  
  
Lucy nodded. "You did the right thing," she told the mother as she turned around to leave the room. "I will be back in one second." From the outside she could hear a SLAP! "Ow . . . Mommy, Eric hit me!"  
  
Lucy groaned as she walked away from the room and to the reception desk. "Randi, have you seen Dr. Weaver?" Lucy asked anxiously.  
  
Randi yawned and inspected her nails. "Yup," she answered.  
  
Lucy waited for a second, then asked impatiently, "Well, where?"  
  
Randi glared at her. "Can't you see I'm busy?" she told her irritably, cracking her gum as the phone rang. Randi continued inspecting her nails as the phone rang over and over again. Annoyed, Lucy finally picked it up. "County General ER," she said, turning away from Randi.  
  
"Hello, I just got a call about my grandson on my answering machine," the voice on the other end said. "I was wondering if I could see him, even though visiting hours are over."  
  
"Look, if he doesn't have a marble in his ear, I can't help you, " Lucy said crossly. This woman was just taking up her time.  
  
"Um, no . . . he was shot," the woman stammered. "His name is John Carter. He's a doctor there."  
  
Lucy's jaw dropped - she had almost blown off Carter's Gamma. "Yes . . . of course . . . of course you can visit him," she said quickly.  
  
"Do you know how he's doing?" Millicent Carter asked anxiously.  
  
Lucy thought for a moment. "Actually, no . . . but I will go check on him right now!" *Finally, an excuse to see him! * she thought happily. She hung up the phone and tried to keep from smiling as she approached Abby. "Abby, I've got a kid with a marble stuck in his ear in Curtain 3, do you think you can take it?" By the time Abby opened her mouth to protest, Lucy was already on the elevator.  
  
------------------------------------  
  
And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming  
  
Or the moment of truth in your lies  
  
When everything feels like the movies  
  
Yeah you bleed just to know you're alive  
  
--------------------------------------  
  
"God, they've got every news station in town out here!" Elizabeth marveled as Doug drove past the ambulance bay. Carol craned her neck to see half a dozen news vans, each unloading several cameras, technicians, and reporters. "How are we going to get past this?" she whispered to Doug.  
  
"We just are," Doug answered firmly as he rounded the corner.  
  
"Hush, little baby, don't say a word," Elizabeth sang to Kate, who was fussing loudly.  
  
"Doug, thanks again for doing this," said Mark. "A cab would have taken forever."  
  
"No problem, you'd do the same for me," Doug replied as he looked for a parking space.  
  
"And Mark, I'm sorry again about . . . Tess . . ." Carol apologized.  
  
"Hey, it's my own fault for playing with her right after she'd eaten," Mark assured her as he attempted to clean the last bit of spit-up off of his shoulder.  
  
Doug swerved the car into an available spot and turned it off with a click. The motor stopped, and the car was silent; no one moved to scramble out. After a few moments of listening to Kate scream, Elizabeth said hastily, "Well we've got to get out sometime. We knew we would arrive here eventually."  
  
Carol nodded and unbuckled her seat belt. "Doug, you get Kate, I'll get Tess," she told him as she climbed out of the car.  
  
Elizabeth opened the door on her side. "My God! It's freezing out there!" she exclaimed. "Will the girls be all right?"  
  
"Yeah," Carol called from outside. "I brought their jackets, their boots, their hats, their gloves -"  
  
Doug laughed as he opened his door and joined her outside. "It's not even snowing, Carol! They'll only be outside for a few minutes at the most."  
  
Carol glared at him. "Do you want to risk our girls getting pneumonia in this cold?"  
  
Mark gathered his luggage and climbed out of the car. "Actually, Carol, cold weather doesn't cause pneumonia," he informed her. "It's caused by a virus -"  
  
"I know that, Mark," Carol said irritably. "I was just making a point." She leaned into the backseat and retrieved Tess, whose small face barely peeked out from her padded, marshmallow-like body.  
  
Doug whistled in awe. "She's packed like a sausage," he marveled. "How did you get her into so many layers of clothes?"  
  
Carol shrugged and handed Tess to Doug. "She was the easy one," Carol told him as she reached into the car and picked up Kate, who was howling at the top of her lungs. "Kate hates wearing jackets."  
  
Mark nodded. "Rachel was like that, too." He tapped on the car window. "Ready, Elizabeth?" he called.  
  
Elizabeth hurried to pack up her luggage. "Just go in without me," she called back. "I won't be ready for a bit."  
  
Mark poked his head in the car. "I don't think that's a good idea," he told Elizabeth. "I really don't think you should go in there by yourself."  
  
Elizabeth looked at him with strong, honest eyes. "I'll be fine," she assured him. "It's only County. It's not a battlefield. Don't worry about me; just find Kerry and see how everyone's doing." She smiled at him. "It's what you do best."  
  
Mark smiled back at her, but sighed. "Hurry," he told her seriously before kissing her lightly.  
  
"Hey Mark," Doug called, "you're getting paged. Oh, so am I." He held out Marks' pager with one arm as he struggled to carry Tess and search for his own pager with the other arm.  
  
Mark ran to him and took his pager. "ER," he said to no one in particular. "We should hurry." Mark walked quickly, and Doug and Carol held onto the twins as they rushed towards the hospital  
  
"I'll be right behind you!" Elizabeth called out, zipping up her handbag.  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
And I don't want the world to see me  
  
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand  
  
When everything's made to be broken  
  
I just want you to know who I am  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
"Hold it! What's going on?" Kerry yelled as she limped towards the officers.  
  
A pair of handcuffs clicked as the officer lifted his head to Kerry. "We're taking him in," the officer answered.  
  
"But why?" she cried. "He's not the gunman! He was with Romano when Cleo was shot!"  
  
"Dr. Finch was shot at Mercy," the officer informed her. "Dr. Carter was shot here, at the precise moment when Ben Herrington" he motioned to the student in handcuffs - "was dismissed by Dr. Romano, claiming to be 'sick at the sight of blood.' He then headed to the roof, shot Carter, ran to the morgue and attacked Kovac, and remained at the scene of the crime only to be found by Dr. Romano here." Romano, standing next to the officer, grinned proudly.  
  
Kerry shook her head. "He couldn't have gone all over the hospital in the amount of time between Cleo's arrival and Luka's attack," she told him. "I think he simply found Luka and was too frightened to leave the morgue." She quickly followed the officer to the door. "Have you even talked to him about it?"  
  
The officer led Ben Herrington away as he spoke to Kerry. "He won't talk. And he doesn't need to - his fingerprints were all over the weapon used to attack Kovac," he explained. "They were also all over the doorknob to the roof. Give us a call when the docs wake up so we can get a description and lock this kid away for good." The other officers followed him as he led the student though the ER doors.  
  
Kerry rushed to another one of the officers. "They found the weapon?" she asked.  
  
The officer nodded. "Yup. It was weird . . . I had thought that it would be a baseball bat or something, but it turned out to be some kind of metal stick. We're taking it in as evidence. But here's a picture of the scene, if you want. It's in there." He handed her a picture and turned away, following the other officers.  
  
Kerry stopped walking and looked at the picture. Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped as she immediately recognized the weapon. *My cane . . . so that's where it was . . .* she thought as a shiver ran through her entire body. Her eyelids fluttered as she realized that what the officer said was true: the student had probably stolen her cane while she was on the phone with the doctor from Mercy, and trapped poor Luka in the morgue where he hit him in the head. *I need to lie down . . ." she thought weakly as she stumbled to Exam 2. She wasn't sure how much more of this she could take.  
  
---------------------------------------  
  
And I don't want the world to see me  
  
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand  
  
When everything's made to be broken  
  
I just want you to know who I am  
  
---------------------------------------  
  
Lucy sighed and leaned against the back of the elevator. She resented the feelings that were flooding her head: feelings about the gunman, feelings about Cleo's death, and feelings about Carter. Lucy didn't really know why she told everyone that she hated Carter. The truth was . . . she didn't know how she felt about him. She could convince herself that he was slime when she was at home, or after a long day of him yelling at her. But one look at his tall, adorable figure striding down the hall towards her, his hands resting comfortably in his white lab coat pockets, his chocolate brown eyes staring into hers . . .  
  
And then he would speak, and prove what slime he could be.  
  
*But he only really yells at me,* Lucy thought. *Why is that? Because I'm his student? Or because he hates me?!*  
  
She didn't know the answer to that question, which is why she told everyone how much she truly hated him. She knew that she was lying to people to cover up the pain of being rejected (*Thank you, Psych rotation,* she thought bitterly) after their "rendezvous" in the suture room. It had been too painful for her to remember, so she had simply stopped believing it had happened.  
  
*But it did happen,* she thought sadly. *He totally messed with my feelings and rejected me. And now I'm running away from patients to see him. I am truly pathetic.* Lucy moaned as she put her face in her hands. She felt stupid for feeling this way about him but she just couldn't help it.  
  
The supply room had really put her over the edge. There had been a period of about an hour when she was sure Carter was dead. The old janitor hadn't known who was killed, but Lucy had had a gut feeling that it had been Carter. A sense of grief had come over her like none before - she immediately regretted everything she had ever done to make him angry. She had wanted to cry more than anything, but Abby was doing enough crying for the both of them.  
  
When she found out that he was alive, but had been shot, all she knew was that she needed to see him. The sense of relief she felt had completely overruled the sense of grief, so much that she now had completely changed her opinion of Carter. *Maybe this whole experience will make him realize what an ass he's been . . . and maybe he'll realize how he really feels about me!* This thought exhilarated her, and she brightened as the elevator doors opened.  
  
Lucy stepped out of the elevator and, still feeling nervous about leaving her shift to visit Carter, tiptoed down the hall until she reached Recovery. She took a quick look around her, then took a quiet step past the doorway into the room. *I hope no one saw me, * she thought guiltily. Then she looked up and surveyed the room. Finally her eyes rested on Carter's bed.  
  
Her heart sank as she saw the IV tubes and monitors attached to his frail body; the only sound in the room was a slight beep . . . beep . . . from the heart monitor. Lucy slowly stepped over to his bedside and observed the machines. "Pulse and BP are normal," she mused. Her gaze fell upon his sleeping form. She had seen him sleeping in gurneys dozens of times, when he was catching a nap between shifts. But he looked so pale, so vulnerable now . . . tears welled up in Lucy's eyes as she pictured the gunshot wound in his leg. Slowly she sat next to him, brushing a strand of soft brown hair from his forehead. Her fingers lingered on his skin, and slowly she traced a path from his forehead to his temple, and then to his eyelid. A tear slipped down her cheek as her finger gently moved from his eyelid, down his cheek, and to his lips. She had loved kissing those lips . . . she had waited for what seemed like years to kiss them, and when she finally had, the moment had simply slipped by. *Why couldn't it have worked?* she thought mournfully as she stroked his cheek with her finger. *Who cares if you're a resident and I'm a med student? Why did you have to brush me off afterwards? Why can't you feel about me the same way I feel about you?*  
  
Suddenly Carter's eye twitched above Lucy's finger, and she drew her hand back quickly. She watched in anticipation as his eyes blinked slowly, then opened. "Luce?" he croaked.  
  
Lucy's heart leapt as she leaned towards him quickly. "Yes, John?" she answered as maturely as she could.  
  
Carter opened his eyes wider as he struggled to gain some sort of consciousness. "What . . . time is it?" he asked.  
  
Lucy checked her watch. "12:15," she answered softly.  
  
Carter moaned and covered his eyes with his hand. "Dammit, Lucy, I told you to wake me up for my shift," he said crossly. "Now it's over. Kerry's gonna kill me!" He glared at her. "I sure hope you're happy. Can't you do anything right?"  
  
Lucy felt like she had been punched in the stomach. "But . . . you . . ."  
  
Carter silenced her with a hand. "Just forget it, ok?" He struggled to sit up but seemed bewildered when he couldn't. Lucy could see that he was waking up a little more when he finally noticed the IV in his arm. "What - what's going on?" he stammered, blinking his eyes to get rid of the last bit of sleep.  
  
"Do you remember going to a trauma?" Lucy asked, trying not to cry. She hadn't anticipated that Carter's first conscious words would be scolding her.  
  
Carter struggled to think. "Yeah . . . yeah I do," he said, remembering a little at a time. "At Mercy, right?"  
  
Lucy nodded. "Yes. Some time after you returned, you were found on the roof with a GSW. You had to have surgery, but it looks like you'll be fine."  
  
Carter squeezed his eyes shut. "I was shot?" he murmured. "I don't even remember being shot. I remember going to the trauma . . . and Dr. Kovac's stupid joke on the helicopter . . ." Lucy could see that the memories were unraveling as he slowly replayed the entire night in his mind. "I remember getting to Mercy . . . and getting off the helicopter . . . I remember Deb for some reason . . . and Dr. Finch . . ." Carter's eyes snapped open. "How's Dr. Finch?"  
  
Lucy lowered her head. "Carter -"  
  
All of a sudden Jing-Mei walked in, and upon noticing a conscious Carter, sped to his gurney. "John!" she exclaimed. "You're awake!"  
  
Carter's strained face relaxed when he caught sight of Jing-Mei. "Deb!" he said happily.  
  
Lucy looked back and forth between Carter and Jing-Mei, puzzled by their equally happy expressions. *What is up with them?* she thought suspiciously.  
  
"How do you feel, John?" Jing-Mei asked as she began to sit in the chair by his bed, not noticing that Lucy was already sitting there. Lucy quickly stood up before Jing-Mei could sit on her.  
  
"Ok, I guess," Carter said, grimacing slightly. "Lucy said that I was shot at the trauma . . . or something . . ."  
  
Jing-Mei shook her head. "No, John, only Cleo was shot at the trauma. They think you were shot after the helicopter returned to County. I found you unconscious on the roof with a GSW to the lower leg. The roof was locked so we had to stay up there for about an hour before they found us."  
  
Carter's eyes widened. "An hour?? Was I out the whole time?"  
  
Jing-Mei shook her head. "You went in and out for about 50 minutes, then you went completely out for 10 minutes before they found us."  
  
Carter frowned. "I don't remember that at all." Suddenly he winced and asked, "Did I say anything embarrassing?"  
  
Jing-Mei laughed. "Only that you're madly in love with me." Carter blushed beet red, and Jing-Mei quickly said, "I'm joking, I'm joking!" She smiled at him, and he grinned awkwardly.  
  
*Oh, gag me,* Lucy thought, repulsed by the obvious flirtation between the two. Something was definitely going on between them, and it was making Lucy feel strange.  
  
"Deb -"  
  
"Jing-Mei," Lucy corrected him crossly.  
  
Carter stared blankly at Lucy. "Yeah . . ." he turned back to Jing-Mei, "What happened to Dr. Finch?"  
  
Both Lucy and Jing-Mei drew a deep breath and paused for several seconds. Lucy opened her mouth to speak, but Jing-Mei's voice came first. "She had very severe injuries, John," Jing-Mei said gently.  
  
Carter interrupted her. "They weren't that severe," he informed her. "We stabilized her even before we put her in the chopper. She was alert and conscious."  
  
Jing-Mei took his hand. "I was speaking to the police when you woke up," she told him. She squeezed his hand lightly as she said, "They think the person who shot you also shot Cleo a third time when the helicopter landed on the roof."  
  
Carter stared at her in disbelief. "What - where did they shoot her?" he choked.  
  
"In the back," Jing-Mei told him softly. "The ER staff couldn't help her. She died at about 8:40."  
  
Carter squeezed Jing-Mei's hand as his face stiffened to stop the impending tears. "I was sure she would be ok," he whispered. "I don't even remember any gunman. Luka, Cleo, the pilot, and I were the only ones on the helicopter."  
  
Intrigued by this new information, Lucy wanted to ask Carter some more questions about the shooting but was interrupted by his sudden emotional breakdown. The events of the night had caught up to him, and he was now weeping into his hands as Jing-Mei was cooing, "I know . . . I know . . ." and stroking his hair.  
  
Lucy's own eyes began to well with tears as she watched the tender scene, but it wasn't because she was touched by the emotions. She was jealous. It wasn't fair that he had yelled at her as soon as he had awakened, and that he had been sweet and gentle with Jing-Mei. What did Jing-Mei have that Lucy didn't?  
  
*An M.D. after her name, of course, * Lucy thought sadly. Had Carter only opened up to Jing-Mei because she was a doctor and therefore his equal - and because Lucy was only a med student? Or did he simply prefer Jing-Mei to Lucy?  
  
Lucy slowly backed towards the door, mumbling, "I've got a patient." She turned around and left the room, unnoticed by the two embracing doctors.  
  
---------------------------------------  
  
And I don't want the world to see me  
  
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand  
  
When everything's made to be broken  
  
I just want you to know who I am  
  
---------------------------------------  
  
"Excuse me, can we have a word with you?" a short, blond woman asked frantically.  
  
Elizabeth mumbled "No," as she tried to rush past the reporter but was confronted by several more reporters, all shoving microphones and cameras into her face.  
  
"Are you a doctor here at County General?"  
  
"Were you shocked to hear of Dr. Cleo Finch's death?"  
  
"What is the status on Dr. John Carter and Dr. Luka Kovac?"  
  
"Do you think the killer is still here?"  
  
Elizabeth groaned as she found herself surrounded by people and camera equipment. *Don't lose your temper, Elizabeth,* she told herself silently as she gritted her teeth and accidentally bumped a woman in the jaw with her shoulder. Suddenly the crowd dissipated and ran towards a nearby police car, where several officers were gathered. "What's going on?" she cried outwardly.  
  
"Someone's collapsed!" one reporter said breathlessly as she rushed past Elizabeth.  
  
*All this hysteria over a collapse?* Elizabeth wondered exasperatedly. She brushed off her irritation and composed herself to be professional. She ran to the crowd around the police car and pushed through the crowd. "I'm a doctor!" she yelled to the officers. "What happened?!"  
  
"I don't know!" one officer yelled back. "He just kinda collapsed!"  
  
Elizabeth bent to the figure in the street and looked up. "Go inside and get help!" she cried as she felt for a pulse. "I need a gurney! What's his name?"  
  
"Um . . . Benjamin Herrington," the officer answered.  
  
"Benjamin! Benjamin, can you hear me?" Elizabeth shouted over the noise of the crowd. "Benjamin!"  
  
Suddenly the boy's eyes fluttered open, and he looked at Elizabeth with fear in his eyes. "What . . . what happened?" he asked dizzily.  
  
"You collapsed," Elizabeth told him gently. "We're going to bring you into the hospital to see what's wrong. My name is Dr. Corday, and I'm going to take good care of you."  
  
The student's eyes widened. "Dr. Corday?" he asked hoarsely. "Dr. Elizabeth Corday?"  
  
"Yes," Elizabeth answered. "Do you know me?"  
  
"No," Ben said softly as he leaned up to her and whispered, "Dr. Greene is looking for you."  
  
*Mark's looking for me?* Elizabeth thought, confused. *I just saw him not 5 minutes ago!*  
  
Just then, Abby and Doug came out with a gurney. "What happened?" Doug called out.  
  
"21 year old male, collapsed on the street," Elizabeth answered. She helped to load Ben into the gurney. "Thank you for giving me the message," she told him.  
  
"It wasn't a message," Ben told her timidly. "I wasn't supposed to tell you but I wanted to warn you."  
  
"Warn me?" Elizabeth asked, concerned. *Against Mark?* The thought was enough to make her laugh.  
  
"Yeah," Ben told her as he was wheeled away. Elizabeth took the back of the gurney and helped to guide it into the ER, and Ben motioned for her to lean closer. "Please be careful, Dr. Corday," he said with terror in his voice. "Dr. Greene's really mad now. . . and the gun's still in the morgue." The blood drained from Elizabeth's face as she stopped in her tracks and let the gurney slide through her hands. Ben turned his head around from the gurney and yelled, "And Dr. Greene said you're next!"  
  
------------------------------------  
  
I just want you to know who I am  
  
I just want you to know who I am  
  
I just want you to know who I am  
  
----------------------------------- 


	6. Fast as You Can (6/7)

Title: Fast as You Can part 6  
  
Song: "All Eyes on Me" by the Goo Goo Dolls  
  
  
  
The end is near . . .  
  
SIDENOTE: I wrote this story between season 6 and 7 - it was my very first one. The characters are a little over-exaggerated, I'll admit, and the storyline is a bit over the top . . . hehe . . . but no one's first fanfic is perfect . . . ( And oh yes, the stabbing never happened.  
  
---------------------------------  
  
Daylight burns your sleepy eyes  
  
It's hard to see you dreaming  
  
You hide inside yourself  
  
I wondered what you're thinkin'  
  
--------------------------------  
  
12:30 am  
  
Luka's eyes blinked twice, then opened fully. His mind was blank as he quickly surveyed the scene around him - blazing lights above him, a blue blanket on top of him, several machines around him, and Carol Hathaway sitting by the foot of his bed, facing away from him. *What is going on?* Luka thought frantically as he tried to sit up. A throbbing pain in the back of his head brought back the memories in an instant, and Luka groaned as he gingerly touched the wound. His head was wrapped in gauze, with a bandage covering the back of his head. "Sto ide . . . Gdje sam . . ." he mumbled.  
  
Carol quickly turned around. "You're finally awake," she smiled. "How do you feel?"  
  
Luka rubbed his eyes. "Besides the blinding pain in my head? Perfectly fine."  
  
Carol moved closer to him. "I can't give you any painkiller until your BP goes up," she told him apologetically.  
  
Luka waved her words away. "Yes, Carol, I know." His pained scowl lightened as he asked, "Where are the girls?"  
  
"With Malucci," Carol answered, an amused smile flickering across her face. "He broke his ankle trying to kick a door in. He's not going anywhere for a while."  
  
Luka nodded as he strained to see the monitor on his left. "100 over 60," he observed. "That is not good enough for painkillers?"  
  
Carol shook her head. "It's not safe yet." Her smile faded into a more serious expression. "You have a concussion," she told him gently. "You've been unconscious for about 4 hours now. Do you remember what happened to you?"  
  
Luka closed his eyes, trying to think past the pain. He remembered a dark room . . . a gun . . . a scream . . . and blood. "Yes," he said bitterly. "I remember."  
  
--------------------------------  
  
And everything you're chasing  
  
It seems to leave you empty  
  
--------------------------------  
  
Carter wiped his eyes. "I'm sorry for falling apart like that," he sniffed, composing himself. "It's been a long night. With my leg and Cleo's death . . . I don't know what happened."  
  
Jing-Mei smiled and sat back into her chair, still holding his hand. "I completely understand," she told him.  
  
Carter looked at her with concern. "I would think that you have more right to break down than me," he said. "You were out there for an hour in the freezing cold while I bled all over the place. And you're still composed enough to calm me down now. I don't think I could ever be that strong."  
  
While Jing-Mei enjoyed getting this praise from Carter (she really, REALLY enjoyed it!), one comment had caught her attention. "I never told you it was cold," she said. "How did you know?"  
  
Carter thought for a moment. "I don't really know . . . maybe I just remembered it."  
  
Jing-Mei was getting excited. "Do you remember anything else?" she asked anxiously. "Think very hard, John. Try to remember anything . . . anything at all. Just remember the trauma, and the rest will come."  
  
Carter closed his eyes tightly. "I remember Cleo getting shot at Mercy, once in the shoulder and once in the lung. . . and I remember loading her onto the chopper because she wanted to go to County instead of Mercy." Carter opened his eyes and stared at a spot on the ceiling, trying to pull up any other memories from the event from the recesses of his mind. "I just can't remember any more."  
  
"Try, John," Jing-Mei urged. "You've got to try."  
  
Carter concentrated. Suddenly, his eyes snapped open. "I remember landing! . . ."  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
And it won't take long to burn  
  
All eyes on me  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
Elizabeth knocked on the exam room door and opened it slightly. "Benjamin?" she asked tensely.  
  
The student sat up weakly; his eyes widened as he saw Elizabeth. "Dr. Corday?" he choked.  
  
"Yes, Benjamin," Elizabeth said gently as she sat next to him. "Your test results show that you are quite anemic, which explains why you collapsed outside."  
  
"Good, great, can we go now?" the officer complained from Ben's left. "I've gotta take him in."  
  
"I don't think it's such a good idea to release him quite yet," Elizabeth explained. "We need to give him some iron treatments, plus run a few more tests. We'll probably admit him for the night."  
  
The officer groaned. "Can I talk to you outside?" Elizabeth nodded, and they headed towards the doorway.  
  
"Are you joking?" the officer hissed. "You want to admit him? Look at what he's done to your staff already! Do you have any idea who this kid is?"  
  
Elizabeth's eyes narrowed. "I know who you're trying to make him out to be," she snapped. "Just let me talk to him before you do anything rash."  
  
"He won't talk," the officer informed her. "I've tried everything."  
  
Elizabeth stepped closer to him. "Just let me try." She stepped back into the room, but turned around and added, "Alone." The officer threw up his hands and walked outside.  
  
Elizabeth sat next to Ben again. *I'm just going to be straightforward with him,* she told herself. *I'm just going to ask him, straight out -*  
  
"I did it," Ben mumbled pitifully.  
  
Elizabeth jerked her head around. "What did you say?" she asked.  
  
"I hit the doctor with the cane," he said miserably. "It was an accident . . . I didn't mean to . . ." He looked at Elizabeth. "But I did it. I'm sorry."  
  
Elizabeth looked at him sympathetically. "Why don't you just tell me what happened," she said gently.  
  
--------------------------------------  
  
Through the nothing that you've learned  
  
All eyes on me  
  
---------------------------------------  
  
"Once we landed on the roof, we realized that there was no one there to meet us with a gurney, so I went into County to get some help," Luka explained. "Carter and I couldn't carry Cleo into the hospital on the paramedic board." He quickly added, "Not that we are not strong enough, of course!"  
  
Carol smiled. "Of course not."  
  
"Those things are heavy!" Luka exclaimed. "There were only two of us to lift it, and Carter is not as strong as I am, so it was sort of lopsided -"  
  
"I get it," Carol said. She couldn't help but be amused by Luka's effort to remain masculine, even as he lay completely frail and helpless in the small hospital bed. "Go on."  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
And the things you choose to be  
  
All eyes on me  
  
------------------------------------  
  
"I swear, you wouldn't know to look at him, but Luka's not exactly a bodybuilder," Carter continued. "He couldn't keep up with me when we were carrying that paramedic board."  
  
"I know, John," Jing-Mei said tiredly. "You told me already. Just keep remembering."  
  
"All right. After Luka went to get a gurney and to get some help-"  
  
"Wait," Jing-Mei interrupted. "Why didn't you just radio in for help before you landed? I was paged a full 5 minutes after you arrived."  
  
Carter thought for a moment. "The pilot told us the radio was broken," he answered. "He tried to get through but it didn't work."  
  
A sudden feeling of déjà vu hit Jing-Mei as the image of the landed helicopter on the roof flashed into her head. *The disabled radio . . .* she thought suspiciously. *Why would the helicopter be abandoned, with the radio disabled?*  
  
------------------------------------  
  
But your eyes look away  
  
It's so hard to be someone  
  
Strung out from today  
  
------------------------------------  
  
"I could find no one to help," Luka told Carol. "Everyone was down in the ER - I figured that it would take too long to go all the way down there. It ended up taking more time to find a gurney - it took me a few minutes."  
  
"So then you and Carter took Cleo to the ER," Carol rationalized.  
  
"No," Luka said, his brow furrowed. "Carter wasn't there."  
  
----------------------------------------  
  
And all that you know slips away  
  
----------------------------------------  
  
"Luka had only been gone for a few seconds before the pilot turned around to me and said, "Do you recognize me?" Carter said rapidly. The memories were coming quickly now. "I could barely hear him over the noise of the helicopter. He was wearing huge goggles and a helmet that was too big for him so of course I wouldn't recognize him! I was pretty sure I'd never seen the guy before, but I had a feeling that I knew him from somewhere, so I said "Yeah!" I didn't want to hurt the his feelings. He said 'Are you positive?' so I said 'Yeah,' again." Suddenly a tremor of shock visibly ran through Carter as the memories quickly unfolded. "And then . . ."  
  
Jing-Mei, sensing his pain, squeezed his hand gently and whispered, "And then what?"  
  
Carter's voice shook as he spoke. "He . . . he took a gun . . . from his jacket," he stammered. "I don't remember what the guy looked like . . . but I remember that gun. I couldn't talk, I was terrified . . . he was saying something about how no one knows him . . . I thought he might be delusional so I started to back out of the helicopter . . . he didn't even notice until I was all the way out. All I remember after that is Cleo sitting up and yelling "Carter!"; then nothing I think I blacked out." Carter hung his head, now overwhelmed with these new memories. "He must have shot Cleo in the back when she sat up to warn me."  
  
Jing-Mei's mind was spinning at these revelations. The sweet, serene expression on her face had subtly been replaced by one of shock and horror during Carter's retelling of the incident. "Oh my God, John . . ." was all she could muster. "Oh my God."  
  
------------------------------------  
  
You drown in deeper oceans  
  
Inventing new religions  
  
------------------------------------  
  
"I didn't want to see the trauma with Dr. Romano," Ben told Elizabeth. "So I sat in the waiting area while it was going on. I didn't even see when he and the other students left so when I noticed they were gone, I tried to find them but got sort of lost. I got back to the waiting area and waited for, like, 20 minutes or something, till I got bored. That's when I saw that short doctor with the cane."  
  
"Dr. Weaver?" Elizabeth asked.  
  
Ben shrugged. "Whatever her name is. I thought it would be useful, so I-"  
  
"You stole Dr. Weaver's cane?" Elizabeth asked, horrified.  
  
"Not really . . . she was talking on the phone and she left it next to the desk," Ben told her.  
  
Elizabeth was aghast. "Didn't you know she can't walk without it?"  
  
Ben looked at her shamefacedly. "No," he answered. "I just thought it would be fun."  
  
Elizabeth sighed. "So you were playing around with Dr. Weaver's cane and 'accidentally' hit Dr. Kovac in the head?" This was getting ridiculous.  
  
Ben's eyes widened. "No! That's not what happened at all!"  
  
----------------------------------------  
  
They smile and stab my back and  
  
I lie and have to laugh  
  
----------------------------------------  
  
"A doctor from Mercy met me on the roof, instead of Carter," Luka explained. "She told me that Carter had been paged to the ER so she would help me bring Cleo to the ER."  
  
"The woman was just there?" Carol asked skeptically. "Where did she come from?"  
  
"She followed us from Mercy in one of the news helicopters," Luka answered. "She was a friend of Cleo's and wanted to assist. So we went onto the roof and loaded Cleo onto the gurney."  
  
"Was she still responsive?" Carol asked.  
  
"No," Luka answered, suddenly somber. "The other doctor told me that Cleo had begun to bleed out from the exit wound from her lung."  
  
"And you didn't check it out?" Carol asked. She knew very well that Cleo had not bled out from her lung, but from the wound in her back - and Luka hadn't mentioned that wound yet.  
  
Luka stared at her. "I had already been concerned about Cleo bleeding out, so I was not surprised when she did. I trusted the doctor - I didn't need to see for myself." His face hardened as he leaned back into his pillow and closed his eyes. "I should not have trusted her," he said mournfully.  
  
--------------------------------------  
  
And it won't take long to burn  
  
All eyes on me  
  
--------------------------------------  
  
"How are you feeling, Carter?" Mark asked he approached Carter's bed in Recovery.  
  
"Hey Dr. Greene," Carter responded. "I'm doing all right, except my leg is killing me. Any chance I could get some more morphine?" Jing-Mei had left a few minutes ago after being paged to the ER, so Carter was glad to have some more company. Ever since he had remembered the shooting, an uneasy fear had settled upon him. He did not want to be alone again.  
  
Mark checked Carter's chart. "I don't see why not," he answered. "Just make sure they don't give you too much. The last thing you need to develop some kind of addiction."  
  
Carter laughed. "I don't think I'll have to worry about that." His smile faded. "I thought you were in New York."  
  
Mark quickly shifted his eyes. "Let's get you that morphine now."  
  
"Did you and Elizabeth come back early because of me?" When Mark didn't answer, Carter sighed. "You didn't have to do that."  
  
Mark looked at Carter. "Actually, it wasn't you, if it makes you feel any better," he told Carter. "We heard about Cleo when we were in New York, and then in the airport in New York we heard about Luka. We heard about what happened to you after we landed."  
  
Carter's eyes widened. "Luka?" he questioned. "What happened to Luka?"  
  
------------------------------------  
  
Through the nothing that you've learned  
  
All eyes on me  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
"When we wheeled Cleo to the ER I noticed that her stats were dropping quickly," Luka said. "But the woman didn't seem to be concerned about it, which surprised me because she was supposed to be Cleo's friend. Once we got to the ER I had Randi page everyone who was on, and I started working on Cleo with the other doctor. It was then that I realized Cleo had been shot a third time, in the thoracic spine, which is why she was unresponsive." Luka's face tightened in anger and his eyes reddened slightly. "She could not respond because she was paralyzed."  
  
"Do - do you think that woman did it?" Carol asked in shock.  
  
Luka looked sadly at Carol. "It's the only answer," he told her. "But I did not realize it at the time. When I told the woman that Cleo had the third gunshot and that I didn't know when she got it, the doctor glared at me and told me to step outside. She pulled out a gun . . . she made me leave Cleo unattended." Luka hung his head. "Cleo was in V-fib when I left."  
  
Carol closed her eyes, remembering the similar scene into which she had walked. "Then what happened?" she asked.  
  
"She put the gun in my back and told me to go down to the morgue," Luka explained quietly. " I didn't understand why at first, but then it came to me - there is no one down there. It was the perfect crime scene." He grimaced. "That was where she wanted to kill me."  
  
"Is that when . . . she hit you?" Carol grimaced.  
  
Luka shook his head. "She started to lose control when we got there," he told her. "She suddenly remembered something she hadn't done. So she locked me in the morgue - I don't know how, she didn't have the key - and left. I think she forgot about me." Luka shuddered. "Being in a dark room with so many dead bodies . . . I nearly passed out."  
  
"Wait a minute," Carol said, confused. "I thought you were attacked at 8:30 or so. When did the woman attack you?"  
  
"She didn't," Luka said. "She never came back. But I was ready if she did."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
Luka smiled. "She was so preoccupied with whatever she forgot that she left her gun in the morgue . . . with me."  
  
-------------------------------------  
  
And the things you choose to be  
  
All eyes on me  
  
-------------------------------------  
  
"So what exactly were you doing with the cane?" Elizabeth suspiciously.  
  
Ben looked at her shamefacedly. "Promise you won't laugh."  
  
Curious, Elizabeth nodded. "I promise," she said as seriously as she could.  
  
Ben sighed. "I was practicing my sword fighting," he mumbled.  
  
Elizabeth stifled a laugh. "What?" she asked, trying not to giggle. This boy was tall, lanky, and thin, with big round glasses and pale skin - she could more easily see him as a computer engineer than a swordsman. "Why?"  
  
"You're going to think it's stupid," Ben warned.  
  
Elizabeth held up her hand. "I swear, I will not think it's stupid." *Even though I'm pretty sure it will be,* she thought amusedly.  
  
Ben paused for a moment. "I have this virtual reality game called 'Dungeons' at home," he explained. "I lost a battle with the Demon of the Dungeon yesterday and it cost me three badges. I thought that I could improve my fighting technique with that cane - it was exactly the right length." He looked down. "I guess I got really into the battle, because soon I was lost again."  
  
"Where did you get to before you realized that you were lost?" Elizabeth asked. She had to change this ridiculous subject before she asked an unnecessarily cruel question.  
  
"The very bottom level, I think," he answered. "I couldn't find any more stairs going down, and after a while I couldn't find the ones going up anymore either. That's when I found that one room." His eyes lowered.  
  
Elizabeth leaned closer. "The morgue?" she asked softly.  
  
Ben looked at her. "I don't know . . . I think so." Suddenly he became quiet again, like he had been in the beginning of the conversation. "There was someone locked in there. He was yelling in some language I've never heard before."  
  
*That must have been Luka,* thought Elizabeth.  
  
"I started to jimmy the lock to let him out, but that's when Dr. Greene came and pulled me outside," Ben continued. "Dr. Greene said that the man in the room was the one who killed the doctor, and that if I let him out he'd kill me too!" Ben shuddered. "Then the door slammed open - I guess I jimmied it enough to open it - and the guy pointed a gun at me . . ." Ben's eyes filled with tears. "I was so scared . . . I didn't know what to do . . ."  
  
Elizabeth took a deep breath. "So you hit him with the cane?" she asked quietly.  
  
Ben nodded sadly. "I hit the gun out of his hands, and it went back into the morgue," he explained. "He just looked at me, and when he saw Dr. Greene behind me he panicked and turned around to pick the gun up again." Ben's eyes dropped. "I hit him again. I knocked him out."  
  
Elizabeth paused for a moment. "I thought you said it was an accident," she told him hesitantly. "That's not really an accident."  
  
"I was scared!" Ben cried.  
  
Elizabeth sighed. She really didn't know what to make of any of this. The student had continuously named Mark as the killer, but Elizabeth knew that this was geologically impossible. She had been with him all night - not to mention across the country. There was the possibility that the student actually was the killer, and that he was putting on this act to try and put the blame onto someone else, like Mark. But this young man didn't strike Elizabeth as a cold-blooded killer, or a liar at that. Something definitely didn't add up.  
  
What Ben had told her outside of County also disturbed her. "Benjamin . . . when you told me I was next -"  
  
Ben's eyes widened. "That's what Dr. Greene said!" he whispered.  
  
Elizabeth stayed calm. "When did you talk to Dr. Greene?" she asked.  
  
"Right after I threw the cane into the trash," Ben told her quietly. "Dr. Greene started yelling 'That son of a bitch stole my gun' and stuff like that. That's when I realized that that other guy wasn't the killer; Dr. Greene was." Ben leaned closer to Elizabeth. "Then Dr. Greene calmed down, and asked me if I had seen Dr. Elizabeth Corday. I said no, and Dr. Greene started yelling 'She's next . . . I'll make sure she's next!' "  
  
The constant "Dr. Greene" reference was a little too eerie for Elizabeth to keep hearing. "How do you know that the killer's name is Dr. Greene?" she asked.  
  
Ben shrugged. "It was on the name tag," he said simply.  
  
Elizabeth tilted her head curiously. "Did it say, " 'Dr. Mark Greene?' " she asked. It was all too obvious to her now - the killer must have stolen Mark's ID. It finally made sense!  
  
"No," Ben said, confused. "Why would a woman's name tag say 'Mark?' "  
  
------------------------------------  
  
But your eyes look away  
  
It's so hard to be someone  
  
Strung out from today  
  
------------------------------------  
  
"Dr. Greene?" An officer hesitantly entered the room. "I'm Officer Thompson. You mentioned that you'd like to see the places of the attacks?"  
  
"Yes, I do," Mark answered as he stood up from his seat next to Carter's bed. "Will you be ok?" he asked Carter.  
  
Carter shrugged. "Yeah, of course," he lied. "I'm feeling great."  
  
Mark looked at him, concerned. "Are you sure?"  
  
"I'm good," Carter said a little less convincingly.  
  
"I'll be back in a few minutes," Mark assured him. "I'll also try to find out how Luka's doing." He took one last look at Carter, then followed the officer outside.  
  
Carter sighed and leaned into his pillow. The room was swirling around him; it had been ever since Mark had told him what happened to Luka. It was no coincidence that the three doctors who had gone to the trauma were the three victims in these bizarre attacks. The helicopter pilot had managed to kill Cleo, but had failed to kill Luka and himself. Would there be more attacks until all three were dead? And why were they the chosen three? Carter's perplexed expression quickly faded and his eyes closed as he felt the effects of the beautiful, blissful morphine . . .  
  
A short, blond woman entered the room. Her footsteps were light: a mere "tap . . . tap . . ." was all that could be heard. Her white lab coat swished against her green scrubs, and her brow furrowed as she approached the young doctor's gurney. "Carter. . ." she murmured. She sat next to him, watching his chest rise and fall, rise and fall . . .  
  
"You've changed."  
  
--------------------------------  
  
And all that you know slips away  
  
--------------------------------  
  
"This is where they found Kovac," Officer Thompson explained. He gestured into the room but held up his hand when Mark tried to enter. "You can't go in. It's a crime scene."  
  
Mark nodded. "So you're sure the med student did it?" he asked, peering in from the doorway. "And with Dr. Weaver's cane?"  
  
Thompson nodded. "They found the kid right here -" he pointed to the left side of the doorway, "and the weapon in the trash can."  
  
Mark listened as he attempted to look farther into the room. There had to be something - anything - that proved the student didn't do it. Kerry had told him about her theory of the Mercy gunman coming to County, and it made a lot of sense to him. There was no physical way that the student could have killed Cleo, shot Carter, and attacked Luka. No way.  
  
"Thompson, Thompson," the officer's radio called. Thompson took it off of his shoulder. "This is Thompson," he spoke into the radio.  
  
Mark didn't hear the conversation; he was too wrapped up in speculations and theories. The morgue was spooky enough without the knowledge that Luka had nearly bled to death there. His eyes combed the room, searching for any clues that would give him the answers he needed.  
  
"Dr. Greene, I just found out that Kovac is awake," the officer informed Mark. "I'm going to go question him. Want to come?"  
  
Mark considered this. "I'll be up in a minute," he responded, still staring into the morgue. There had to be something . . .  
  
The officer shook his head. "I'd feel better if you came. I'm not comfortable leaving anyone alone in this hospital right now."  
  
Mark turned around to face him. "I thought you already had the killer," he challenged.  
  
The officer shifted uncomfortably. "Well yeah, but. . ."  
  
"I'll be up in a minute," Mark informed him, and turned back into the morgue. Sighing, the officer reluctantly headed up County's stairs alone.  
  
Frustrated, Mark shook his head. "It just doesn't make sense," he mused.  
  
"Nothing does."  
  
Alarmed at the sudden voice, Mark whirled around-  
  
-and faced the barrel of a gun.  
  
"Hello, Mark," a calm, pleasant voice spoke.  
  
Mark's heart stopped momentarily. This face . . . this face had haunted him for a year . . . this face had crept into his subconscious and made his skin crawl . . . this face had made him uncomfortable and disgusted in his own workplace . . .  
  
"Amanda," he finally choked. "Amanda Lee."  
  
------------------------------  
  
And you hide in your room  
  
And the light burns away  
  
And you move from the truth  
  
It's all so far from you 


	7. Fast as You Can (7/7)

Title: Fast as You Can, 7/7  
  
Song: I am taking a break from the Goo Goo Dolls. (*gasp* *wail* *scream*) The song for the final part of "Fast As You Can" will be its namesake - "Fast As You Can" by Fiona Apple. I thought of the idea for the series while listening to this song so I found it only appropriate to end the series with it. Enjoy!  
  
Notes: This is the last chapter in this series – I completely forgot to update it for some reason. Again, this was my first fic, I've seen the errors of my ways . . . hehe  
  
1:00 am  
  
"Randi, have you seen Mark?" Doug asked while scanning the board.  
  
Randi didn't move her gaze from her magazine. "Nope," she answered absently, turning a page. "Not since he came in with you a half hour ago or something." She glared slightly as she looked up at him. "Weren't you already here tonight?"  
  
Doug sighed. "I just can't seem to tear myself away," he remarked sarcastically. He turned around and headed down the ER halls and grumbled, "I should be asleep right now, but of course, I'm here instead, like I am every day . . ."  
  
He was so absorbed in his grumbling that he ran into Elizabeth, who was rushing out of an exam room. "Whoa, Elizabeth!" Doug exclaimed. "Where's the fire?"  
  
"Don't joke, Doug; just tell me you've seen Mark in the last few minutes," Elizabeth pleaded.  
  
Doug shook his head, and Elizabeth groaned. "I was just looking for him myself," Doug told her.  
  
"If you see him, tell him to get out of here!" Elizabeth cried as she ran past Doug. "Tell him to go home as fast as he can!"  
  
"Wait, Elizabeth," Doug called. "Why -"  
  
Elizabeth turned around and ran backwards, facing Doug. "Just do it!" she yelled as she turned back around and sprinted through the ER.  
  
Shrugging, Doug opened the door to the lounge and walked inside. Malucci was seated on the sofa, his leg in a cast and propped up on several pillows. Tess was sleeping in his arms, and Kate was seated on the floor, screaming at the top of her lungs. "Dr. Ross, thank God," Malucci said gratefully. "I think that one hates me."  
  
Grinning, Doug strolled over to Kate and picked her up. "How have my girls been?" he asked as he comforted a hysterical Kate.  
  
Dave sighed. "This one's good," he said, nodding to Tess. He pointed to Kate. "That one's the evil one."  
  
Doug raised an eyebrow at Malucci as he put Kate to his shoulder and walked back and forth across the room. "She's not evil, Malucci," Doug said as he kissed Kate on the forehead. "She just doesn't like you."  
  
Malucci shook his head and stroked Tess's hair. "Whatever, man," he said. "Kids always like me. This one must be the smart one."  
  
Doug smirked at Malucci. "If we're going by those standards, then Kate must be the smart one."  
  
Malucci began to nod triumphantly, but was confused. "Which one is Kate again?"  
  
Suddenly the lounge door opened again, and Abby walked in. "Oh, you brought the girls!" she squealed, rushing to the sofa and scooping Tess from Malucci's arms.  
  
"Hey!" Malucci cried. "We were bonding!"  
  
Abby scowled at him as she expertly adjusted her arms to hold Tess, who was still asleep. "You got to hold her all night!" she informed him. "I was locked in a SUPPLY ROOM for two and a half hours, then working for three. I'm on my break."  
  
"Hey, I broke my ANKLE on that supply room," Malucci informed her. "I've been sitting here for as long as you've been working."  
  
"Wooo, you've been sitting on a sofa for 3 hours," Abby remarked sarcastically. "Poor baby."  
  
"Hey-" Malucci protested.  
  
"Abby, have you seen Mark?" Doug interrupted, not wanting to hear Malucci whine any more.  
  
"Um, I saw him talking to one of the cops outside," Abby answered. "But that was about 20 minutes ago."  
  
Doug thought for a moment. Elizabeth had seemed panicked in the hallway; however, Doug knew of her tendency to overreact to everything. Even so, he was worried. Mark wasn't one to stray far from the ER. Maybe the cops would know where Mark went.  
  
"Aw, look, Abby, you woke her up," Malucci moaned as he feebly reached for Tess. "You're a sucky babysitter. Give her to me."  
  
Abby turned away from him. "Tess is just fine where she is," she told Malucci as she gently jiggled Tess up and down.  
  
"Here, Malucci, you take Kate," Doug said as he handed her to Malucci. "I'm going to find Mark."  
  
"But -" Malucci started to protest. Doug held up a hand as he hastily left the lounge. "Don't leave me with the evil one!" He sighed and looked at Kate, who promptly burst into tears.  
  
-------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
I let the beast in too soon, I don't know how to live  
  
Without my hand on his throat; I fight him always and still  
  
-------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
"Amanda," Mark sputtered. "What - what are you doing here?"  
  
Amanda frowned. "You didn't even welcome me back," she protested. "I was gone for a more than a year. Didn't you miss me?"  
  
Mark chose not to answer.  
  
"Not even a welcome back kiss?" she asked, disappointed.  
  
Repulsed at the prospect of kissing Amanda Lee, Mark took a step back. Amanda's gun tilted up a bit, guiding Mark back to the doorway of the morgue. "Oh no, Mark Greene," Amanda said calmly. "You're not getting away from me again."  
  
---------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Oh darling, it's so sweet, you think you know how crazy  
  
How crazy I am  
  
---------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
"You've changed."  
  
Carter's eyes blinked open. "Huh?" he yawned, unable to see the woman to his left.  
  
"You've changed, Carter."  
  
Carter sat up and struggled to see who was speaking. "Oh, it's you, Lucy," he said, relieved. "You scared me." He yawned again, stretching his arms. "I was in the middle of a beautiful morphine-induced dream-"  
  
"Shut up, Carter," Lucy snapped. "I'm going to talk and you're going to listen, for once. It won't kill you."  
  
Carter tilted his head and settled into his pillows, amused by Lucy's change in demeanor. "Ok, he said with a grin. "I'm listening."  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
You say you don't spook easy, you won't go, but I know  
  
And I pray that you will  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
"What are you doing here?" Mark repeated.  
  
"I should ask you the same thing!" Amanda cried. "Why did you move from Mercy?"  
  
"I never worked at Mercy!" Mark said, confused. *She's even more psychotic than the last time I saw her,* he thought. Still, his hands trembled as he stared into the barrel of the gun. "So it's you who's been doing all this?"  
  
Amanda smiled. "Doing what?" she asked innocently.  
  
Mark was flabbergasted. "You know what!" he yelled. "You've been attacking my staff . . . my friends!"  
  
Amanda's face was blank. "I don't know what you're talking about," she replied. "Your precious Dr. Corday is safe. I would think that you'd be happy."  
  
A chill ran through Mark as he remembered Amanda's complete obsession with him a year ago. Her knowledge of his relationship with Elizabeth could be potentially dangerous, and obviously - Mark looked into the gun that was pointed at him - Amanda was capable of making it dangerous. "How do you know about Elizabeth?" he asked.  
  
"A friend told me," Amanda answered slyly.  
  
"A friend?" Mark asked, puzzled. Who could have possibly told her that he and Elizabeth were together?  
  
"Yes, a friend," Amanda said hotly, then screamed, "I DO HAVE FRIENDS, MARK!"  
  
"I - I know!" Mark stammered, not wanting her to become hysterical. "Of course you have friends!"  
  
Amanda visibly calmed down. "I have more friends than you do," she said haughtily.  
  
"I know," Mark assured her, knowing that she was lying but trying to calm her down. "But what are you doing here?"  
  
Amanda smiled at him. "You still haven't given me a kiss," she told him.  
  
------------------------------- Fast as you can, baby, Run - free yourself of me Fast as you can -------------------------------  
  
"Excuse me, officers," Doug said as he approached the officers in Chairs. "I'm looking for Dr. Greene - have you seen him?"  
  
An officer nodded and pointed up the hall. "He went to Dr. Kovac's room about 20 minutes ago," he told Doug. "Said something about a Nurse Hathaway up there -"  
  
"In Kovac's room?" Doug asked, his eyes flashing with jealousy. He HATED that guy.  
  
The officer shrugged. "I guess," he said, turning back to the other officers.  
  
Doug turned away and rapidly strode to the elevator. *I've got to get to Kovac's room,* he told himself. He trusted Carol completely - it was Kovac who bristled him. Plus, he was getting more and more nervous with each person who had only seen Mark 20 minutes ago. What could have happened since then?  
  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---  
  
I may be soft in your palm, but I'll soon grow hungry for a fight,  
  
And I will not let you win  
  
My pretty mouth will frame the phrases that will  
  
Disprove your faith in man  
  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---  
  
Lucy stood up and paced around the room, not really sure what to say. Carter watched her patiently, then complained, "C'mon, Luce, I want to get back to sleep sometime tonight. I'm exhausted."  
  
Lucy turned to him. "Do you remember that time in the Suture room, Carter?" she asked suddenly. "When we . . ."  
  
Carter lowered his eyes. "Of course I do," he murmured after a few moments. Remembering their encounter in the suture room always made him want to throw up. It wasn't that he was embarrassed by it - more like disgusted. And it wasn't Lucy that disgusted him, either. Lucy was obviously very attractive and he could not deny the fact that he had once been very attracted to her. But that time was over. Carter didn't know why he felt so nauseated when he thought of that night, or when he was in the suture room; all he knew was that it had been a mistake.  
  
Lucy took a deep breath. It was finally time to tell him the truth. *How can I say this without sounding too stupid?* she thought desperately. "That was . . . the best time I ever had in the suture room," she blurted out." *DAMMIT, I'm pathetic!* she thought mournfully.  
  
Carter tried not to laugh at her ridiculous statement. "Oh, come on, I think sewing up torn, bleeding human flesh is even better," he joked, then immediately wished he hadn't said anything. "Wait, that came out wrong, Luce-"  
  
Lucy's eyes filled with tears. "I knew I shouldn't have told you," she said bitterly. "I knew you wouldn't feel the same way I do."  
  
"Feel what way?!" Carter asked.  
  
"The way I feel about you!" Lucy cried.  
  
"How is that?!" Carter yelled back, knowing perfectly well what she was going to say. He just hoped that delaying her inevitable statement would somehow change it.  
  
"That I'm in love with you!" she shouted, then immediately silenced. "I'm in love with you."  
  
Carter's eyes widened and his heart jumped into his chest. He had not been expecting Lucy to say that. He had been expecting something like "I have a crush on you" or "I like you" - something much more immature than "I'm in love with you." How was he going to deal with this? Crushes were easy to let down, infatuation was easy to end, but love? How did Lucy even know it was love?  
  
"Luce-" he began.  
  
"No," she interrupted, turning back to him. "I know what you're going to say. I know how you feel. I thought I could change you but you've already changed. That's why I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to tell you that I'm transferring to Mercy so I won't be in your way anymore."  
  
"Lucy, you don't have to do that," Carter told her. "Really. I do like having you as my student . . . and my friend." A slight pang of guilt crossed Carter's brow as he knew he was lying; he had never actually considered Lucy his friend before that moment. He did, however, like having her as a student. "But nothing more."  
  
"What about Dr. Chen?" Lucy asked abruptly.  
  
"Huh?" Carter asked, taken aback. "What about Dr. Chen?"  
  
"You two obviously have something going on," Lucy snapped at him. The tears had stopped, and the mournful longing in her eyes had been replaced by sharp anger. "I want to know what it is."  
  
Carter shifted uneasily in his bed. "I don't know what you're talking about."  
  
Lucy threw up her arms angrily. "You two were all over each other a while ago!" she cried. "I thought I was going to throw up!"  
  
Indignant, Carter sat up. "She was comforting me when I was suffering," he informed her, trying to keep his anger down. "I had just been shot, Lucy, and I had just found out Cleo was dead." Carter glared at her. "You need to stop thinking about yourself for a minute and consider the feelings of others around you."  
  
Lucy was aghast. "You - you want ME to stop thinking of myself?!" she sputtered. "ME?"  
  
"Yeah, you," Carter told her, crossing his arms. "Maybe if you had been there-"  
  
"I WAS THERE!" Lucy screamed. "I was there when you woke up, and you bawled me out for something I didn't even do! You wouldn't let me explain a goddamn thing but when Dr. Chen came in you were totally fine!"  
  
Carter searched Lucy's eyes worriedly. "Are you going through some kind of Ritalin withdrawal?" he asked, concerned.  
  
Lucy's jaw dropped, and her pale face grew dark red with pure rage at Carter's comment. Mere words could not pass her swelling throat for they would not express her fury adequately. "Fuck you, Carter," she managed to choke as she stormed out, leaving a dumbfounded Carter alone in the room.  
  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------  
  
So if you catch me trying to find my way into your heart from under your skin  
  
Fast as you can, baby scratch me out, free yourself  
  
Fast as you can  
  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------  
  
"Ah, Dr. Ross," Luka smiled as Doug entered the room. "How are you this fine evening?"  
  
Doug tried to hide a glare as he checked Luka's chart. "Looks like someone's checked into the Acetaminophen Hotel," he commented.  
  
Luka nodded happily. "It is a beautiful hotel indeed. Located in the town of Tylenol Plus."  
  
Doug put Luka's chart back at the foot of his bed. Not looking up while speaking, he asked, "Have you seen Mark?"  
  
Luka thought for a moment. "Yes. He and Carol went to the ER for a trauma."  
  
Doug groaned. "No, they're not in the ER, Luka," Doug said through gritted teeth. "I was just there."  
  
"Hmmm. Very peculiar. Perhaps you missed each other?" Luka asked.  
  
Sighing, Doug turned around. "Worth a shot," he mumbled. Doug did NOT like the fact that the two people closest to him were now missing - and the way the night was going, he couldn't afford for anyone to be missing.  
  
----------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Fast as you can, baby scratch me out, free yourself  
  
Fast as you can  
  
----------------------------------------------------------------  
  
"Why did you do it, Amanda?" Mark asked hesitantly after a period of silence. "Why did you kill Dr. Finch?" No matter how close her finger wavered over the trigger of the gun, Mark had to know why.  
  
"I didn't mean to," she said. "I made a mistake." She looked at Mark sadly. "I'm sorry."  
  
"You're-you're sorry?" Mark asked incredulously. "That's it?"  
  
"I didn't know it was Dr. Finch!" she cried. "I thought it was - someone else. It's hard to see a person's face from the top of a building." She glared at Mark. "Besides, this is all your fault."  
  
"What?" Mark asked. "How?"  
  
"You moved from Mercy," Amanda told him. Mark couldn't tell if she was trying not to cry or trying not to burst out in anger. "I thought you still worked at Mercy. None of this would have happened if you hadn't worked at Mercy."  
  
"I never worked at Mercy!" Mark exclaimed. "I've always worked at County!"  
  
Amanda was confused. "No, I memorized it! 'M' for Mark, 'M' for Mercy!"  
  
Mark shook his head. "I'm telling you, Amanda, I have always worked at County. YOU even worked at County - how could you mix that up?"  
  
Amanda, overwhelmed, let the gun's aim fall from Mark's face to the floor, causing Mark to let out a deep breath. " 'C' . . ." she murmured. " 'C' for County, 'C' for . . ." she shot a look at Mark - "Corday. I should have known."  
  
"No, Amanda," Mark pleaded frantically. "That's just a coincidence!"  
  
Amanda slowly brought the gun back up to Mark. "I wish I could believe you," she said dejectedly.  
  
----------------------------------------------------  
  
Sometimes my mind don't shake and shift  
  
But most of the time, it does  
  
---------------------------------------------------  
  
"Doug!!" Carol cried, rushing to him and wrapping her arms around his neck. "Oh my God . . . I was so worried . . ." Suddenly she let go of his neck and angrily looked into his eyes. "Where the HELL have you been?"  
  
"I was looking for Mark," Doug explained, pulling Carol into a casual embrace. "I heard he went up to Kovac's room."  
  
Carol shoved him in the chest, causing him to stumble back a step. "Don't you EVER do that to me again!" she screamed. "I have never been so scared in my life!"  
  
"Wait a minute," Doug said, confused. "What's going on?"  
  
"Haven't you heard?" Carol asked. "The killer's still loose! The police called and said the fingerprints on the door to the roof weren't the student's after all! Just now the cops arrived and got an interview out of the kid! The killer is still here!"  
  
"What did the kid say?" Doug asked hurriedly. He had found Carol in the ER after all - but that was only one half of his concern. "And where is Mark?"  
  
"The kid told the cops everything," Carol explained. "The cops checked it out with Carter and Luka, and his story checks out." Carol motioned for Doug to step to the side of the busy ER hallway and leaned closer to him. "The killer posed as a pilot on the chopper," she whispered. "They think that the killer is the sniper but they don't know for sure."  
  
"Then why are they calling him a killer if they don't know if he's the sniper?" Doug asked.  
  
"First of all, the killer is a she," Carol corrected, watching Doug's eyes widen in shock. "And second of all, she killed Cleo."  
  
"Wait, wait," Doug held up his hand. "I thought you said that they didn't know if the sniper was the killer."  
  
Exasperated, Carol sighed. "Let me finish, please!" Doug held up his hands in resignation, and Carol continued. "When the chopper got back to County, the radio was out, so Luka went into County to get some help and a gurney. That's when the pilot shot Carter and Cleo."  
  
"I thought Cleo had already been shot!" Doug said, perplexed.  
  
"Doug, I am going to kill you!" Carol yelled, then realized the severity of her choice of words and kept her voice down. "Just try to follow me here. Cleo had been shot twice at the trauma, then when she got back to County, the pilot shot her a third time in the back." Doug, grimacing at the memory, nodded in understanding. "The pilot then shot Carter and left him there. She met Luka inside the hospital and they brought Cleo to the ER. The pilot then took Luka to the morgue at gunpoint and left him there." Carol was growing more and more excited with each detail she divulged. "The student was messing around with Kerry's cane, heard Luka in the morgue, jimmied the lock, got scared when he saw the gun-"  
  
"What gun?" Doug inquired.  
  
"The woman left the gun in the morgue with Luka," Carol told him.  
  
"Well that was a stupid thing to do," commented Doug.  
  
"Shhh! Let me finish! The student got scared when he saw Luka and the gun, and hit Luka with Kerry's cane." Carol glared at Doug as he stifled a chuckle at the irony of Kerry's infamous cane being used to inflict pain. "Shut up! That's the last time they saw the killer! They don't know where she is now!"  
  
"Or who she is," Doug added thoughtfully. A sudden pain coursed through his head as a single memory struck him for a split second. "Oh, shit," he mused, covering his mouth with his hand. "I've got to find Mark - NOW."  
  
"He went to Carter's room after we came down here," Carol told him. "Make sure to tell Mark about what the police found out - he doesn't know about any of it yet! And tell him to be careful!"  
  
-------------------------------------------------------------  
  
And I get to the place where I'm begging for a lift  
  
Or I'll drown in the wonders and the was  
  
-------------------------------------------------------------  
  
"Damn Damn DAMN!" Elizabeth screamed as she watched the numbers on the elevator light up VERY slowly. "If I'd known it would take this long I'd have taken the DAMN stairs!" She tried to calm herself down by taking deep, cleansing breaths - but was constantly distracted by thoughts of Mark. "If that bitch has done anything to him, anything at all . . ." she murmured; then, remembering the security cameras, shouted, "I don't give a damn if you can hear me, security people! I really, really don't!"  
  
It seemed to Elizabeth that she had spent a great portion of the time in the last ten minutes in very slow elevators. She had searched every floor, including Luka's and Carter's room, for some clue as to where Mark could be. She was now heading towards the roof - Carter had told her that a policemen had brought Mark to the scenes of the attacks. If only Mark knew what danger he was in . . .  
  
Sighing, she resumed watching the numbers light up. "What floor am I on . . . DAMN! I'M GOING THE WRONG WAY!! I'm supposed to be going UP!!!" Frantic, she repeatedly pushed the very top level button. "I don't have time for this!" she wailed, slumping against the elevator wall.  
  
--------------------------------------------------  
  
And I'll be your girl, if you say it's a gift  
  
--------------------------------------------------  
  
"This isn't how it was supposed to happen," Amanda said, her voice quivering. "Not at all. No one was supposed to get hurt."  
  
"Then why were you sniping people off the top of Mercy?" Mark asked, trying to keep his voice calm. "Didn't you know that people would get hurt if you SHOT at them?"  
  
Amanda turned to him with tears in her eyes. "You were supposed to be working at Mercy! You were supposed to already be there! No one would have gotten hurt if you had just BEEN there!" She was obviously losing control, and Mark warily watched the gun begin to slip from her fingers.  
  
"What about Carter?" he asked shortly.  
  
Amanda looked confused. "Carter's too young for me," she answered.  
  
"No, I meant why did you shoot him?" Mark inquired, becoming surprisingly indignant.  
  
Suddenly the shadow of a feminine figure danced upon the wall that led to the morgue. The woman was crying very hard, and could not see the scene in front of her. She sounded like - Lucy? "No!" Mark shouted. "Lucy! Get out of here!"  
  
The girl appeared not to hear him - she kept walking closer and closer to the corner. Amanda, however, snapped out of her lamenting breakdown and pointed the gun at Mark again. "Get into the morgue!" she hissed. "Hurry up! And don't say a word!"  
  
Utterly confused, Mark complied, walking quickly so the barrel of the gun would not press too forcefully into his back. A fear gripped him as the light disappeared from his vision and the morgue door closed, leaving him in the cold, dark tomb. *Dammit, Amanda,* Mark thought angrily. *Lucy hasn't done anything! Leave her alone!* But the words remained unspoken, and a shiver wracked Mark's shoulders as he stared into the dark nothingness before him.  
  
------------------------------------------------------  
  
And you give me some more of your drugs  
  
------------------------------------------------------  
  
"Hello, John," Jing-Mei said pleasantly as she entered the room.  
  
"Hey," Carter responded absently.  
  
Jing-Mei looked at him curiously. "What's wrong, John?" she asked. "Has your morphine worn off?"  
  
Carter glared at her slightly. "Just because I'm not peppy doesn't mean I'm having a medication problem," Carter replied. Suddenly he smacked himself in the forehead. "Dammit, THAT'S why Lucy got so mad!" he moaned. "I blamed her suffering on the Ritalin. I'm such an idiot!"  
  
Jing-Mei sat next to him. "You're not an idiot," she cooed, taking his hand in hers. "What happened with Lucy?"  
  
Carter sighed. "I think I broke her heart," he said sadly.  
  
------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Yeah, I'll be your pet, if you just tell me it's a gift  
  
------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Lucy walked slowly through the hall, weeping loudly and freely. *I don't care who hears me,* she thought bitterly. *I deserve to cry.* Her white shoes scuffed across the linoleum and her sobs echoes through the empty halls.  
  
Meanwhile, Mark was attempting to see past his hand in the pitch-black morgue. *I need to see what's going on!* he thought frantically. Suddenly a splinter of light caught his eye, and upon examining it, Mark found that he had fair visibility of Lucy's location in the hallway through the crack in the wall. *Thank you, Kerry, for being too stingy to patch up these walls!* he thought gratefully.  
  
"Lucy!" Amanda cried, rounding the corner and meeting her in the hall. "What's wrong, sweetie?"  
  
*Sweetie?* Mark wondered. *Since when does Amanda Lee call Lucy Knight "sweetie"? Since when does Amanda Lee KNOW Lucy Knight, for that matter?*  
  
"Amanda!" Lucy wept, falling into Amanda's embrace. "Why is he such an ass? What's wrong with me?"  
  
"Shh, shh," Amanda said soothingly. "I'm guessing it didn't go well."  
  
"No, it didn't!" wailed Lucy. "First I was forceful, then I was honest, and then I cried - all the stuff you told me to do!" She swallowed a sob and wiped her eyes. "And he made fun of me! He said that I need to think about others' feelings, instead of only mine! He even blamed my emotions on the RITALIN!" Lucy, unable to hide her feelings any longer, leaned into Amanda's shoulder and cried.  
  
"Lucy, sweetheart, men are pigs," Amanda said softly but matter-of-factly. "Men are stupid idiots who don't know how much one word or one action can wound a woman."  
  
"Not all men," Lucy sniffed. "Only Carter."  
  
"Oh no, Lucy," Amanda corrected her. "ALL men. Trust me." She shot a glare at the morgue, and even though Mark knew she couldn't see him through the crack in the wall, he shrank away from her burning stare.  
  
"Get out of there, Lucy," Mark whispered, returning to the crack. He had no idea how Amanda and Lucy knew each other, or how Amanda knew what was going on between Lucy and Carter, or even what WAS going on with Lucy and Carter. But if Amanda was brainwashing Lucy the same way she had brainwashed Mark a year ago - and by the gentle tone in her voice, he could tell that she was - Lucy was in serious, serious trouble.  
  
---------------------------------------------------------  
  
Cause I'm tired of "why"s, choking on "why"s,  
  
Just need a little "because", "because"  
  
---------------------------------------------------------  
  
"She was in love with me, Deb," Carter murmured. "It doesn't matter how I feel about her. I should have let her down easier, or at least told her that I was once attracted to her." He chuckled slightly. "She was even jealous of you and me."  
  
"What?" Jing-Mei asked, flustered. "Why?"  
  
Carter shrugged. "Who knows. I guess she saw you comforting me and got jealous." He shook his head, bewildered. "Why would she think there was anything going on between us?"  
  
"Got me," Jing-Mei responded sadly, silently cursing herself for her feelings.  
  
Carter was quiet. Eyeing Jing-Mei, he asked, "What exactly IS going on between us?"  
  
-----------------------------------------------------  
  
I let the beast in, and then  
  
I even tried forgiving him, but it's too soon  
  
-----------------------------------------------------  
  
"Elizabeth!" Doug called, catching up to her in the hall.  
  
"Doug!" she cried, turning around. "Have you-"  
  
"No," Doug answered, his eyes becoming cold. "You haven't?"  
  
"Oh, God," Elizabeth gasped, bringing a trembling hand to her open mouth. "Oh, God . . . where could he be?"  
  
"I'm sure he's fine," Doug assured her, trying not to let her see the fear in his eyes. The fact that they both had been scouring the hospital for Mark Greene without finding him - and that Carol had told him that the killer was still on the loose in County - resulted in only one answer. And that answer was too frightening for him to contemplate, much less express to Elizabeth, who was crumbling before his eyes. He knew by the terrified look in her eyes that she had already checked the roof - to no avail. "Have you checked the morgue?" he asked calmly.  
  
"No," Elizabeth admitted, trying to hold her composure. "I haven't checked the cafeteria either." She looked at Doug with worry in her eyes. "Oh Doug, what if he's -"  
  
"He's not," Doug told her firmly.  
  
"You don't know that!" Elizabeth wailed. "It's so frustrating! I even know who the killer is! But where the hell is she?"  
  
"You know who she is, too?" Doug asked, and Elizabeth nodded gravely. "Then you know that the student isn't . . ." he stopped talking when Elizabeth closed her eyes and nodded again. "We're wasting time here. You go check the morgue, and I'll check the cafeteria." Doug watched Elizabeth nod once more, and was relieved at not having to go down to the dreaded morgue. "Let's go!"  
  
-------------------------------------------------------  
  
So I'll fight again, again, again, again, again  
  
-----------------------------------------------------  
  
"Lucy, listen to me," Amanda said sternly. "Carter does not deserve you. You deserve so much better than him."  
  
"I know, I know," Lucy whimpered, composing herself.  
  
*Dammit, Lucy, don't listen to her, whatever she says!* Mark prayed. *She's insane!* Suddenly, something caught in Mark's throat, and, shocked, he tried to clear it without making any noise.  
  
"Ack ack ack!" he coughed loudly, horrified at his throat for betraying him. Quickly he backed away from the crack in the wall, but it was too late.  
  
"Is someone in there?" Lucy asked curiously.  
  
"No, of course not, dear," Amanda assured her. "Now about Carter-"  
  
"I could have sworn I heard someone cough," Lucy said, and Mark could hear her padded footsteps coming closer and closer.  
  
*Lucy, for the love of God, don't open this door!* Mark pleaded silently. *I'm already in enough trouble right now - don't get into it!* His thoughts were interrupted as a flash of light blinded him, causing him to shield his eyes with his forearm.  
  
"Dr. Greene?" Lucy asked, bewildered. "What are you doing here?"  
  
"It's not what it seems, Lucy!" Amanda cried as she rushed to the morgue.  
  
"Then what is it?" Lucy asked. "Why is Dr. Greene in the morgue?"  
  
"Lucy - watch out! She's got a gun!" Mark blurted out. He had to save at least one life out of this mess.  
  
Lucy remained emotionless. "Yeah, I know," she shrugged.  
  
*What?!* Mark thought, horrified. *Lucy knows?*  
  
Amanda groaned and took the gun from her lab coat pocket, pointing it at Mark once again. "Damn you, Mark. You ruin everything."  
  
Lucy shook her head. "Amanda, please tell me why Dr. Greene is in the morgue," she pleaded. "And please tell it's not for the reason I think it is."  
  
Amanda stared at Mark, her gun aimed at his forehead. She didn't answer.  
  
"Oh, God!" Lucy cried exasperatedly. "Don't tell me you're not over Dr. Greene yet! It's been a year!"  
  
"Shut up!" Amanda shouted, not moving her stare. "You don't know true love! You don't know how much betrayal can kill you!"  
  
"Of course I don't know true love!" Lucy snapped. "I would know true love right now if you hadn't screwed everything up!"  
  
"I told you, I didn't mean to lock you in that damn supply room!" Amanda yelled back. "You were late getting to the roof!"  
  
"You were early getting to County!" Lucy screamed. "I told you to be there at 8:30 - you got there at 8:20! How the hell was I supposed to get all the way to the roof in the time from your call to when you arrived?!"  
  
Neither woman truly noticed that Mark was still standing in the morgue, his hand trembling like leaves in a breeze. Amanda no longer aimed the gun directly at him; the barrel swayed haphazardly from his chest to his legs as Amanda moved her hands around in the intense argument. Mark attempted to stand as still as he possibly could - perhaps they wouldn't be able to notice him if he didn't move. However, as frightened as he was, Mark still tried to keep up with the conversation.  
  
"Not only that," Lucy continued to yell, "you managed to lock ANOTHER WOMAN on the roof instead of me! That completely ruined the plan! Carter fell in love with the wrong person!"  
  
*Plan?* Mark thought as he slowly let out a deep breath. *Was Lucy in on Amanda's plan?*  
  
"That was an accident, too!" Amanda cried. "Everything was ruined! I was supposed to leave Mercy in a cab at 7:45, get to County by 8:15, get to the roof by 8:25, shoot Carter - a favor to you, I might add - call you, and lock the door behind you!" Amanda was near tears. "But everything was ruined!"  
  
"What were you doing at Mercy?" Lucy asked angrily.  
  
"I - I had something to do there," Amanda explained sadly. "But when I found out that Mark worked at County-"  
  
"Mark and I work at the same hospital, Amanda!" Lucy shrieked. "How could you mess that up?"  
  
"I FORGOT, OK?!" Amanda screamed. "I'm sorry! I knew you and Carter worked at County but I thought Mark worked at Mercy! I went to Mercy, and when I found out he didn't work there I panicked. I sneaked up to the roof and just started firing . . .when County's helicopter showed up, it seemed like everything had fallen into place . . . I thought he had come for me, instead of me coming for him. That's when I saw HER down there." Amanda turned to Lucy, tears streaming down her face. "I didn't know it was Dr. Finch. I thought . . . she had the same curly hair . . . she looked just like her . . ."  
  
Mark could not breathe, for Amanda's words had punched him in the stomach. Amanda had killed Cleo, thinking that Cleo was Elizabeth.  
  
Lucy was silent for a moment. "I forgive you," she said as if Amanda's apology was the only part of the conversation she had heard. "But I need you to do me another favor."  
  
Amanda looked at her curiously. "What?" she asked.  
  
Lucy's brow furrowed. "Do you know Jing-Mei Chen?" she asked. "She's the one who took Carter from me." Amanda nodded in understanding. "Will you do it?"  
  
Just then a light voice bounced through the halls. "Mark?" a woman called hesitantly. "Are you down here?" A familiar figure rounded the hall, and Mark slowly took a step and peered out of the morgue, unable to hold himself back from seeing if the voice was just a dream. Upon seeing that Elizabeth indeed stood at the corner, Mark nearly collapsed from the relief of seeing her alive.  
  
Elizabeth's heart leapt upon seeing Mark's face. "Mark!" she cried happily, then terrified when Amanda's gun swayed from the wall to against Mark's head. Elizabeth studied the woman, trying to place her. "You?" she asked, surprised that her guess hadn't been right.  
  
Amanda's eyes flashed and narrowed. "YOU!" she cried out in fury.  
  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------  
  
And for a little while more, I'll soar the uneven wind, complain and blame  
  
The sterile land  
  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------  
  
"John, I'm sorry if I've complicated everything for you," Jing-Mei said hurriedly. "I know how guilty you feel about Lucy -"  
  
Carter shook his head. "No, don't apologize. This doesn't have anything to do with Lucy." He was quiet for a moment, then smiled. "I must admit, I had the biggest crush on you back in med school."  
  
Jing-Mei smiled back at him. "So did I," she told him softly.  
  
"You had a crush on yourself?" Carter asked, amused.  
  
"No!" Jing-Mei laughed. "You know what I mean!"  
  
Carter nodded and gazed into her dark eyes. He had never truly appreciated how delicate and beautiful those endearing eyes really were. *Perhaps something good did come out of those med student days,* Carter thought, then grinned - *something that can hopefully be salvaged.*  
  
-----------------------------------------------------------  
  
But if you're getting any bright ideas, quiet dear  
  
I'm blooming within  
  
-----------------------------------------------------------  
  
"Oh . . . Dr. Lee, is it?" Elizabeth asked timidly, focusing on the gun pressed to Mark's temple.  
  
"Dr. Greene, actually," Amanda corrected her, her eyes still narrowed. "Amanda Greene."  
  
Elizabeth's stomach churned as this woman, this cold-blooded killer, dared to attach Mark's honorable name to her own. "Yes, my mistake," Elizabeth said faintly.  
  
Mark was torn at this point. He was petrified at the sensation of the cold metal circle against his temple, but he knew he needed to show Elizabeth that he wasn't frightened. "What are you doing here, Elizabeth?" he asked through gritted teeth.  
  
"I - I was looking for you," she stammered, trying to think fast. "You disappeared on me. Where did you go?" She tried to make small talk while she thought of a plan.  
  
"Um, I think you found that out," Mark told her, his voice quavering a bit.  
  
Amanda groaned. "Come on, this is making me sick-"  
  
She was interrupted by a high-kick to the back of the head. Stunned, she stumbled forward and released the gun against Mark's head. Mark, still shocked, didn't move. Elizabeth tore to his side, embracing him and pulling him away from the wall, where Amanda immediately turned. "Damn!" she screamed. Angrily she turned to Lucy. "All I tried to do was help you. All I wanted to do was make you happy, even if that meant shooting an innocent person. And this is how you repay me?!"  
  
Lucy stood silent, the tips of her fingers trembling only slightly.  
  
Amanda shook her head in disgust and pulled the trigger carelessly.  
  
"Click."  
  
Shocked, Amanda fired twice more. "Click, click."  
  
"I'm out of bullets?" she asked no one in particular. "I didn't think I was out of bullets."  
  
Mark became enraged. "You've been holding me down here for this long, and you didn't even have any bullets?!"  
  
Amanda shook her head in disbelief. "I was sure I had a few more," she mused, examining the gun.  
  
Just then Doug rounded the corner and, visibly surprised to see so many people, took a step back. "Uh, hey, Mark," he said cautiously. "Everything ok?"  
  
"Just fine, Doug," Elizabeth told him. "I found Mark."  
  
"I can see that," Doug said, confused. He then noticed Amanda and he took a double take. "Whoa!" he exclaimed. "Amanda Lee! I didn't think it was her! I thought it would be Susan Lewis!"  
  
Elizabeth nodded enthusiastically. "Me too!"  
  
Mark rubbed his eyes, still frustrated. "I was caged in the morgue like an animal and you couldn't have even shot me if I'd just left?! I can't believe this."  
  
Elizabeth faced Mark and took his face in her slender hands. "Just be grateful that you weren't hurt," she told him. "And that no one else can be hurt tonight."  
  
BANG!  
  
"What the hell was that?" Malucci asked in the lounge. "Sounded like a gunshot."  
  
A mug dropped to the ground and shattered, spreading coffee and bits of ceramic around the room. "Oh no," Carol moaned. "Please, God . . ."  
  
"What's wrong?" Malucci asked. "It could have just been a car backfiring."  
  
"It wasn't," Carol wailed as she rushed out of the lounge. Malucci strained his neck, trying to see what was going on in the halls outside.  
  
Hysteria had broken loose in the ER. The police had finally announced an evacuation of County only minutes before the shot had sounded, and now patients and medical personnel were screaming and tearing through the halls. Even though it was very late at night, there were a significant amount of patients, nurses, janitors, and doctors clogging the narrow halls of County General ER.  
  
"Hold it, HOLD IT!" Kerry screamed. She struggled to climb up on the reception desk, doing so with Malik's help. "LISTEN UP!" The crowd murmured fearfully as they turned to face Kerry. "We need to calm down! We need to get this evacuation organized!"  
  
"But someone was shot!" Chuny cried. "We heard the gunshot!"  
  
"I know that!" Kerry shouted. "The police are checking it out! Now who's missing?!"  
  
"Doug!" Carol yelled. "And Mark and Elizabeth!"  
  
"Lucy too!" Abby yelled.  
  
"What about Jing-Mei?" Carter, who had been wheeled down to the ER, called out.  
  
"I'm right here, John!" she cried from somewhere in the crowd.  
  
"Ok, that's everyone," Kerry shouted efficiently. "Now -"  
  
Suddenly a man shouted "Clear the way! Clear the way! Coming through!" Three police officers and Mark were pushing a gurney along the halls, with Doug knelt over the body, giving CPR. Kerry watched, horrified, as they wheeled the gurney into trauma 1, and for the fourth time in a span of 5 hours, Kerry recognized the body in the gurney. "What happened?" she hollered to Mark.  
  
Mark didn't turn back as he swerved the gurney through the trauma doors. "She was shot while we were in the morgue!" he yelled, hooking up several machines.  
  
"What were doing in the morgue?" Kerry cried.  
  
"Carol, we need you in here!" Doug yelled, hopping off of the gurney.  
  
Kerry made her way down from the reception desk as she continued to bark questions. "Did you find out who did it?" she asked, not caring who heard her anymore. The news and speculations about the killings had spread though County without discretion - there were no secrets any more.  
  
As if answering her question, three more police officers burst through the crowd. "Excuse me folks," one officer apologized. "Clear the way." They were leading a handcuffed woman who looked completely stunned out the door.  
  
*That's the killer?* Kerry thought, squinting at the woman. *Amanda Lee?!*  
  
Mark had turned from the gurney and was watching the officers escort Amanda out the door. He shuddered as she whipped her head around in his direction. "Mark!" she screamed. "I need to talk to you! Please!"  
  
Mark shook Amanda's voice out of his head as he turned away to Carol as she hurried into the room. "She's brady at 80 over 50, pulse is 50! We need 2 units of O neg!"  
  
Carol turned around to the crowd. "Lydia!" she screamed over the many voices. "2 units of O neg!"  
  
"Got it!" Lydia shouted back.  
  
Kerry, meanwhile, was still in shock from realizing the identity of the killer. Slowly she began making a mental checklist of the newly recovered people. *Mark and Doug are here,* she thought, *but where is . . .* "Mark, where is -"  
  
"There wasn't room in the elevator!" Mark yelled, focused on intubating the woman in the gurney. "She'll be up soon! I need that O neg NOW!"  
  
------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Maybe late but at least about  
  
Fast as you can  
  
----------------------------------------------------------------  
  
3:00 am  
  
A soft hand touched Mark's sleeve, and Mark groaned with his slow awakening. He stretched out his arms over the Exam room bed and rolled away from the hand. "Mark," a gentle voice whispered. "Mark. Are you awake yet?"  
  
"No," Mark mumbled groggily. "I just need a few more minutes . . . please . . ."  
  
"I think you'll want to hear what I'm going to say," Carol told him.  
  
Mark's eyes snapped open. "What?" he asked.  
  
"Elizabeth's out of surgery, if you want to see her." Carol told him. "She'll want to see you."  
  
"What about-" Mark started.  
  
Carol smiled at him. "Amanda's in custody. It's all over."  
  
Mark rubbed his eyes once as he sat up and stretched again. "Thanks, Carol," he said. "You should go home though. You need some sleep."  
  
Carol rolled her eyes. "I would go home, if my husband and daughters weren't asleep in the lounge."  
  
Mark grinned. "Sounds like a photo op."  
  
Carol grinned back and held up three finished rolls of film. "Been there, done that," she told him. "Now go see Elizabeth."  
  
Mark nodded and hugged her briefly, then left the lounge and headed to the elevator. He was met by Kerry right after he pushed the "up" arrow. "Hey, Kerry," he said wearily, but unable to keep a smile from his face.  
  
Kerry gave him a faint smile as she leaned against the wall. "Hey." she said. "Quite a night."  
  
Mark nodded. "Quite." The two were silent, both mentally calculating the repercussions of the night. Cleo was dead, Carter wouldn't be able to walk for weeks, Luka would be under the effects of the concussion for a long time - and now this. "Thank God Amanda was caught," Mark commented. He paused. "Where's Lucy?"  
  
Kerry lowered her eyes. "Psych ward," she said quietly. "The police decided that she wasn't of right mind when she came up here so they decided to wait until tomorrow for an investigation." Suddenly the elevator dinged and the doors opened. "I'd better go," Mark said hesitantly. "I'm-"  
  
"I know," Kerry said, waving him forward. "Go."  
  
Mark gave her a half-smile, then stepped onto the elevator. *Kerry can be ok when she wants to be,* he thought, pressing the button that would bring him to Surgery. *I just wish she wanted to be more often.*  
  
The doors opened a few seconds later and Mark stepped out. He immediately saw Elizabeth walking out of a surgery room, frantically looking for a way out of a conversation with Romano.  
  
"So I figure, next time if we can close off the femoral artery BEFORE we repair the tissue, the patient might lose less blood." Romano told her.  
  
Elizabeth nodded unenthusiastically. Suddenly she caught sight of Mark, and as she rushed to him, she yelled, "Sorry, Robert, I'm leaving for the night!" When she reached Mark she pulled herself close to him, whispering, "Get me out of here before he starts to talk again. I've been involved in that bloody conversation for twenty minutes."  
  
Mark smiled at her. "Carol just woke me up about 5 minutes ago, right after you got out of surgery," he said. "How did it go?"  
  
Elizabeth sighed sadly. "The poor man lost his leg," she told him. "Pedestrian against SUV."  
  
Mark nodded sympathetically and put his arm around her shoulders. "How's Lucy?" he asked.  
  
"Her surgery went very well," Elizabeth told him. "The bullet was lodged between the clavicle and humorus but we managed to remove it before it did any cartilage or nerve damage to her arm. She's very lucky." Elizabeth smiled at Mark. "I suppose that because we couldn't help with Cleo, I'm especially thankful we saved Lucy." Mark nodded in agreement.  
  
Elizabeth's smile faded and she looked up at Mark. "When that gun went off, Mark . . ."  
  
"I know," Mark said, guiding her onto the elevator. "It scared the hell out of me too. And when you fainted I was sure you'd been hit. Then Lucy went down, and . . ." he rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, trying to stop the burning sensation that had begun behind his eyes.  
  
Elizabeth stroked his face. "It's all right, Mark, you can cry," she told him gently.  
  
Mark shook his head. "Nah, that's ok." He took Elizabeth's hand from his face and held it in his own. "So when are we continuing our vacation in New York?" he asked jokingly.  
  
Elizabeth smiled and, reaching to the back of his neck, pulled him into a kiss as the elevator doors closed behind them.  
  
---------------------------------------------  
  
Leave me, let this thing run its route  
  
---------------------------------------------  
  
Lucy groaned and rubbed her wrist with her hand. "No matter how many times I convince patients how important it is, I cannot STAND getting IV's," she grumbled. She brushed a hair off of the sling on her right arm with her left hand.  
  
Suddenly a nurse, who Lucy didn't know, approached Lucy's bed. "How are you feeling, dear?" she asked. "Better?"  
  
"A little," Lucy said honestly. "How's my BP?"  
  
The nurse checked the monitor next to the bed. "Going up," she observed, "but not quite stable yet."  
  
Lucy sighed and sank into her pillow. However much pain she felt at that moment, she now knew that karma did exist. She had planned and plotted for Carter to be shot, and as she lay in her gurney in the Psych ward, she knew that she deserved anything she got - especially a bullet wound in her arm. The pain that shot through her arm could not compete with the guilt that ran through her heart.  
  
"Lucy," another nurse asked timidly, approaching the bed. "Dr. Carter is here to see you. Do you want to see him?"  
  
A tear appeared at the corner of Lucy's eye, but she nodded slowly. "Yes," she answered quietly.  
  
"She'll see you now, Dr. Carter," the nurse whispered out the door. Lucy didn't move her head but she watched the nurse wheel Carter next to the bed. The nurse then left, leaving Lucy and Carter alone.  
  
The room was silent for several minutes, and Lucy tried to stop the warm tears that spilled from her eyes. Carter spoke first. "How are you feeling, Luce?" he asked cautiously.  
  
Lucy didn't speak; she turned her face away from him as another tear rolled down her cheek and dropped onto the pillow.  
  
Carter closed his eyes painfully. He had hoped that his words hadn't caused Lucy as much pain as she had let on, but judging by the way she was acting now, she had been deeply wounded.  
  
He had spoken to Mark earlier that night, after Mark had stabilized Lucy and brought her to surgery. Mark had told him about Lucy's conversation with Amanda - how Lucy had not only known about Carter's shooting, but how she had helped to plan it.  
  
*I just need to talk to her,* he thought. *I need to know why . . . why she would want to do a thing like this.*  
  
However, seeing that Lucy wasn't about to talk, Carter opted to take the initiative. "Lucy, whatever I did to make you angry enough to do something like this against me, I'm sorry." He hung his head. "I'll understand if you never want to talk to me again. I know I was a jerk back there, when you were just trying to tell me how you felt. I . . ." he put his hand on the bar of the gurney, "I can't tell you how sorry I am."  
  
Lucy slowly faced the ceiling, not looking at Carter. "Why are you sorry?" she asked, choking on her tears. "I was the one who told Amanda to shoot you. I was the one who planned the whole thing out to the second. I was the one who . . ." she swallowed a sob, "who only thought of my own feelings."  
  
Carter shook his head. "I was wrong to say that before. I'm not trying to blame you at all, Luce," he said gently. "I just want to know what I did to make you want to do this."  
  
"Nothing!" Lucy cried. "You just weren't in love with me!"  
  
"So . . . you wanted to punish me?" Carter asked, struggling to understand.  
  
"No!" Lucy wiped her eyes with her free hand. "I wanted to MAKE you fall in love with me?"  
  
Carter was silent; he was too confused to comment.  
  
"Before tonight you only saw me as a clumsy med student, someone who only made mistakes and didn't really care about the patients," she explained sadly. "I thought if there was a situation where you were the patient and I was the only one there to help you . . ." she trailed off and covered her eyes, humiliated. "I thought I could change how you felt about me. I thought I could make you fall in love with me. But instead, Amanda locked Jing-Mei on the roof and me in the supply room. It was supposed to be the other way around. You fell in love with her instead."  
  
Carter inhaled deeply - he finally understood. All that Lucy had known was that she had indescribable feelings towards her colleague. She had tried to make them clear to him through all her efforts to gain his approval, and he, like an idiot, had only led her on when he had succumbed to his hormones in the Suture room. While her motives to seduce him were misguided, they were, in a way, very innocent. "The feelings Jing-Mei and I have for each other began a long, long time ago," he explained. "Since med school. Nothing just 'sparked' between us on the roof. Nothing's really going on right now. We're at an understanding is all." Carter smiled slightly as his choice of words. "To tell you truth, I don't remember anything after being shot. Even if you had been on the roof instead of Jing- Mei, I wouldn't have remembered it." He stopped for a moment. "What made you think that I only saw you as a clumsy med student?"  
  
Lucy finally turned towards him, but avoided eye contact. She knew that drowning in his brown eyes again would sting like acid and the pull that drew her to his eyes was too painful to bear. "Didn't you?"  
  
"No!" Carter said quickly. "Of course not! I saw you - I SEE you - as a promising student who will make a wonderful doctor someday. I see you as a kindhearted person who cares about her patients and those around her more than she cares about herself. I see you as a strong adult who endures far too much verbal and emotional abuse from her teacher." He paused for a moment. "And yes, I see you as a very attractive, beautiful woman, and I do admit, I was extremely attracted to you at one point."  
  
" 'Was.' " Lucy repeated scornfully.  
  
"It wouldn't have worked, Lucy," Carter explained. "We're too much alike. We're both stubborn as mules and we both fall in love too easily. That's why I had to stop it before I fell completely in love with you."  
  
Lucy sighed sadly and finally looked into Carter's eyes. "You're going to be hard to get over, Carter," she said, tears brimming at her eyes again.  
  
Carter smiled kindly and touched her cheek, wiping her tears with his fingertips. "I'm not as perfect as you make me out to be," he told her.  
  
Lucy chuckled half-heartedly. "I'll have to keep that in mind," she said, yawning.  
  
Carter took his hand away. "You need your rest," he instructed her. "I'll come visit you in the morning." Lucy nodded sleepily, and Carter smiled at her once more before wheeling himself out of the room.  
  
*Sleep . . . sounds too good to be true . . ." she thought happily. Everything suddenly seemed brighter. She and Carter were, for the first time, on good terms, and that's all that mattered to her at that moment. "Oh, the police," Lucy moaned, a wave of shock shooting through her body. "Damn." She knew it was too good to be true.  
  
"The police are gone for the night," a male voice spoke up from a curtained gurney.  
  
Lucy's head jerked around. "Who said that?"  
  
The curtain slowly drew back a little, and Lucy saw the face of a young man in his twenties. He had big glasses and was very pale, but he was handsome in a way.  
  
"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you, Lucy," the young man apologized. "I've been dealing with the police all night. I just thought you'd want to know that they've already left for the night. They left while you were in surgery."  
  
"Thanks," Lucy said, puzzled. "How do you know my name?"  
  
The young man grinned shyly. "I met you earlier tonight," he told her. "My name's Ben - Ben Herrington."  
  
Lucy nodded her head as she finally recognized him. "Oh yes," she said. "Second year med student, right?"  
  
Ben nodded. "Yeah," he answered. "They brought me up here after they interviewed me. First I fainted in the ambulance bay, and now they think I'm crazy." He shrugged. "Maybe they're right. I don't know."  
  
"Yeah, well, at least your craziness didn't get someone seriously hurt," Lucy told him, "and your arm in a sling."  
  
"Actually my craziness did get someone hurt - that Kovac guy." Ben lowered his eyes, and the air stood still for a few moments. "I heard you and that guy talking just now."  
  
Lucy sighed painfully. "I see."  
  
Ben hesitated. "I - I didn't really understand why he couldn't fall in love with a person like you. It seems easy - you seem like a really nice person who cares about other people." He smiled shyly. "Plus you're gorgeous."  
  
Intrigued, Lucy smiled. "Thank you," she said, becoming more and more attentive to his charms with each word he said.  
  
"So, when they let us get up and walk around, do you think you'd like to . . . take a walk around the floor-" he glanced up, then back down - "together?"  
  
Lucy smiled. "I'd like that," she told him, amused by Ben's feeble attempt at a proposal for a date. *But maybe that's what I need right now.* Maybe things WERE going her way, after all.  
  
--------------------  
  
Fast as you can  
  
--------------------  
  
"Carol, your husband's snoring is annoying me," Malucci whined, pointing at Doug as Carol walked into the lounge. Doug was stretched out on the couch asleep, with one sleeping twin in each arm. "I can't concentrate on healing if I'm constantly distracted by such an unpleasant noise."  
  
"Oh, shut up, Malucci," Doug grumbled, shifting a little on the couch. He was slowly waking up - and fighting consciousness as hard as he could.  
  
Carol strode over to Doug and knelt next to him. "Doug," she whispered, shaking him a little. "It's 3:30 am and my shift starts at 7:00. We've got to get home now."  
  
"Let's just stay here till then," Doug mumbled into the couch cushion.  
  
Carol shook her head. "We can't keep the girls here," she told him. As if on cue, Kate began to stir in Doug's arms. "Come on, you can go back to sleep when we get home."  
  
Doug sighed and opened his eyes wearily. "All right," he yawned, sitting up slowly. Carol took Tess in her arms and began to put her into her battle gear - coat, scarf, gloves, boots, etc. "Hey, while you're doing that, I'm going to sleep for 5 more minutes," Doug said quickly, and before Carol could protest, he was horizontal on the couch again.  
  
Malucci snickered. "He's your worst child," he informed Carol.  
  
Carol rolled her eyes. "Tell me about it." She handed Tess to Malucci and reached for Kate. Her hand brushed Doug's shoulder as she removed Kate from his arms, and Doug's hand immediately met hers and held it there for a moment, the corners of his mouth turning up slightly. Carol sighed in delight as she felt the familiar electricity spark between their hands. Nothing could ever take that away.  
  
---------------------  
  
Fast as you can  
  
---------------------  
  
"Yeah, what?" Peter Benton said gruffly into the phone. "Oh, hey Elizabeth. Nah, you didn't wake me up. Or Reese." Benton quickly moved the portable phone into the kitchen so Elizabeth couldn't hear Reese's whimpering - Benton had inadvertently turned on a light when he answered the phone. "So what's up? Did they catch whoever was doing all this?" He listened intently. "Oh, man. I had no idea it would be her." He ran his hand over his face - a nervous habit he had developed in the last few years - and kept listening. "Yeah, you can tell me the details tomorrow. I know you've got to get home. Ok, later. And thanks for calling me." Benton hung the portable phone and stood in shock for a moment. The woman who had killed Cleo and who had shot Carter was Amanda Lee. He never would have guessed.  
  
Suddenly Reese's whimpering became wailing, and Benton quickly rushed to his bedroom. "Hey, man, it's ok," he soothed his son as he rocked him back and forth. "It's ok. Everything's gonna be ok."  
  
---------------------  
  
Fast as you can  
  
--------------------  
  
"Oh, how I missed this slum!" Elizabeth exclaimed as she walked past into Mark's apartment. "How are you, hole in the wall? Did you miss me?"  
  
"Ok, ok, Elizabeth," Mark chuckled as he sifted through his mail. "I get it."  
  
Elizabeth smiled at him and dropped her bag on the sofa. "I don't think you do," she teased, unzipping her bag. "Otherwise you'd have mended the hole." She walked into the bathroom. "Good evening, drippy sink!"  
  
Mark turned away and pressed the button on his answering machine. "You have - one - new message," the machine responded mechanically.  
  
"Only one?" Mark asked, confused.  
  
"Hello, Mark," an all-too-familiar voice rang out from the machine. Chills immediately ran down Mark's spine as Amanda Lee's voice echoed through the walls of his apartment.  
  
Elizabeth slowly stepped out of the bathroom. "Oh, God," she mused. "Make her go away."  
  
"This is Amanda," the message continued. "They let me have one phone call, and since there's no one who I really need to call, I thought I'd call you. I really wanted to talk to you in person, but I'll have to settle for talking to your machine. Mark, I hope you know that I wouldn't have hurt you today. I would never hurt you."  
  
"Yeah, I'm sure that's what you were thinking when that gun was pressed against my head," Mark said angrily.  
  
"I love you. I know you don't love me, but I've accepted that. I came back for one purpose, and I failed. I hope you and Dr. Corday will be very happy together. You seem to love her. I only want you to be happy. Now I know that I can't be the one to make you happy. I'll think about you every second of every day. That's how I'll get through this." The message paused. "I'm also sorry about shooting Cleo, and Carter, and Lucy. Lucy's a good girl - just a little confused. Tell her that I told the cops that I shot Carter - and that she had nothing to do with it. She's too delicate for a place like this. Cleo was a genuine mistake. Carter was just a favor to a friend." Mark could hear whispers in the background. "Ok, they're telling me I have to get off now. Goodbye, my love." *Click.*  
  
There was silence in the apartment for several moments after the message ended. "Well, that was strange," Elizabeth commented.  
  
Mark nodded numbly. "Yeah," he managed to say. The air was awkward.  
  
Finally Elizabeth spoke again. "Dear God, it's nearly 4 am!" she exclaimed. "We should get to bed."  
  
"I'll be right behind you," Mark said, and Elizabeth headed towards the bedroom.  
  
Cleo. Carter. Luka. Lucy. And himself. So many people had been affected by Amanda's lunacy and delusions; Cleo, for one, would never recover. Carter's, Luka's, and Lucy's wounds would scar and eventually heal, but the scars in the ER as a whole could never fully heal. Amanda had done more than injure a few people when she pulled the trigger. She had cut into County itself and had created a hole that could not be repaired or filled. And for the rest of Mark's life, a pair of eyes would be staring into him. Not a moment would pass when he wouldn't feel that he was being watched by those eyes that had bore into him a year ago, and that had bore into him as the gun was pressed against his head.  
  
Mark exhaled deeply as he bent over the message machine and pressed "DELETE."  
  
If only it were that simple.  
  
----------------------  
  
Fast as you can  
  
----------------------  
  
THE END 


End file.
